What happened to my Sap???

[Tim Wagoner]

Ok what happened?? The other day I had about 200 gal of sap and I was going to evaporate it the next morning but it was going to get down in the low 20’s that night so I turned on my pump and also had my uv light on and let it pump pass the light and back into the tank all night. My thought was this would keep it from freezing which it did but when I went out the next morning and looked in the tank the sap was not nice and clear any longer, it had a slight yellowing to it. Is it possible that the UV light did this? The UV light I have is one that is used for ponds if it is the wrong type of bulb (not one that is a germicidal killing bulb) will it accelerate the growth of the bacteria? I cooked the sap down and it was a little darker but still tasted great. It has me wondering if the bulb I have is the right one. This has made me gun shy of using my UV light.

[maplehound]

Sounds to me like you pumped it so much that it heated up and spoiled.

[3rdgen.maple]

That would be the wrong type of uv light but I am not sure it would cause the yellowing you are speaking of. Pretty much that pond uv light is useless in the sap. I have not seen sap turn yellow because it is spoiled it usually gets real cloudy and has a bad smell to it. I am wondering if there was a chance of some rust in your lines. Maybe from an iron valve or something of the sorts. Glad it did not get wasted and tasted fine.

[KenWP]

Sounds like the impeller on the pump might have had some rust on it and wore off. If it tasted fine then there wasn't anything really wrong with it.

[Haynes Forest Products]

I wonder if between the heat from pumping and the heat given off by the light your not counter acting any benefit from the UV light. I dont understand how a light designed to kill bacteria in a pond/hotub would be differant from sap. I guess I wont be filling my hotub with sap this year.

[3rdgen.maple]

Haynes it is a different type of bacteria. The pond ones are for killing algae. Now that you said that I am thinking of how the ones in my koi ponds are setup. Pump is in the pond uvlight is inline before filter. Uv kills the algae and then the filter collects it and out comes the cleaner water. Also in a pond bacteria is essential as well to maintain a healthy aquatic and fish life. So with that said how effective is the uv light without a filter to collect and trap the dead bacteria? If it is killing the bacteria is it not just putting the dead cells back into the sap? I smell something fishy...

Sorry for robbing the thread.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I can't imagine anything is wrong with your sap in that short of a period of time. Did you taste it??

[maplwrks]

This will sound funny but ----You wore your sap out. By pumping it all night long, you intrduced oxygen to the sap dropping the quality of the sap. There is nothing wrong with it, it will just make darker syrup. 802 and I had this exact conversation yesterday. I need to pump all of my sap, each time adding air to the sap. I have a hard time making light syrup, even with high concentration. I once had an old timer tell me that "I was going to wear out my sap before I boiled it". Thought he was full of s---t at the time, now maybe he wasn't as full after all!

[DanE.]

I think I would agree with KenWP on this. yesterday I was doing a water test on the new pluming i installed in the SH. I fired up the pump and when I was done the water was brown/orange. I took the pump apart, the cast iron housing was rusty. I think I'm sticking to my 1/2" 12 volt pump that is SS this year. does not pump as fast but I know the sap will be clear.


Dane.

[smitty76]

the uv light in most pond units are the correct type for sap, some of the cheaper ones run a different type bulb. I would more strongly believe that the plumbing was rusty or something before I blamed the light.