Tim - my trees are a combo of wood younger trees (lines) and yard big old maples. I got approval from owner to tap a 4' diameter tree that hit 7%! Yes! This tree according to owner had never been tapped. He's lived there for over 30 yrs.
Tim - my trees are a combo of wood younger trees (lines) and yard big old maples. I got approval from owner to tap a 4' diameter tree that hit 7%! Yes! This tree according to owner had never been tapped. He's lived there for over 30 yrs.
For all to read-found this to be very very helpfull. yes I only tap sugar maple. No red/silver/etc.
https://employees.csbsju.edu/ssaupe/...nal_report.pdf
Tapdrinker... have you calibrated your refractometer with distilled water recently? I'm not saying your ssc is wrong as it's totally possible to get high concentrations from open grown trees, but I have been disappointed before by faulty refractometer readings as they need to be calibrated often. Especially the cheap ones....
Pretty slow to thaw out here yesterday but once the sun came out the sap started flowing a bit. We'll see what today brings...
About 750 taps on High Vac.
2.5 x 8 Intens-O-Fire
Airtech 3 hp LR Pump
Springtech Elite 500 RO
14 x 24 Timber Frame SugarHouse
16 x 22 Sap Shed w/ 1500 gal. + 700 gal. tanks
www.littlehogbackfarm.com
After putting a few drops of sap on the refractometer, close the lid and wait a minute for the sap and instrument to come to thermal equilibrium. Then take your reading. If the refractometer is warm (from being in your pocket or hand), and the sap is cold, the reading will be off on the high side. Also, make sure the lid is closed right away, otherwise water will evaporate off the slide/well and artificially elevate the reading.Originally Posted by tapdrinker
Dr. Tim Perkins
UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
https://mapleresearch.org
Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu
Tim-Yes the same tree that was 7 yesterday is 4.5 today. Still excellent. I started my RO and the sap is brown-5 micron filter. I'm thinking there is a lot of sand in it. I'll be boiling tomorrow as I have 25 gal of what I think is about 6%. My RO is almost worthless when the sap is strong out of the trees. It does help with the weaker 3% trees-brings it up to 5.5 easily. I might look into getting a more powerful pump to get it from 105 ish psi to 125-That little bit would make a huge difference in flow over 4 membranes. When I do boil tomorrow - I'll drop my psi to about 90 as I can evap at that same rate output of the ro system and put it directly into the heater pan. Sap lines are running good-still have about 25 gal in the bin running ro. I expect about 40-50 gal of sap tomorrow at 3 brix min hope I can get more like 4. It takes me about 1.5 hrs to make a gal of syrup at 6 brix. The guy down the street can make 110 gal in that same amount of time. Glad it is a stress free hobby for me... well sort of. LOL.
Tim here is a photo of what I'm talking about. Is this color difference normal? water is obvious and very clean. the Sugar is light brown.
IMG_1405.jpgIMG_1406.jpg
Only .56 gpt this week here in Georgia (VT)
gathered .50gpt last evening testing right at 2%, very little sugar sand so far this year
2.4 gpt of sap since yesterday morning. Decent flow, but still not a super great run. Sugar still low at 1.55 Brix average. Seems to be still a fairly early season run. Crew is setting up more experiments today and we'll finalize some of them tomorrow.
Dr. Tim Perkins
UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
https://mapleresearch.org
Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu
didn't get a whole lot of sap flow up here in the kindgom yesterday or last night, but it has picked up this a.m and is coming in at a good pace now! looking forward to our first boil of the season tonight!
Awfully thankful for an understanding wife!
“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
- Vincent “Vince” Lombardi
Good luck to all!
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