at what sugar % do you stop running sap?

[Jim Foster]

I started out at 3% sugar Feb 13th, 2% Feb 23rd and 1-1/2% last week. When do you stop?

Jim

[ecp]

Without an Ro that is entirely up to you, but I can tell you boiling 1% sap is very painful. With an RO it's still up to you but you can go until the trees stop running.

[Jim Foster]

Yeh, it's a pain to boil that long for no more than you get. My cooker boils down 10 gal an hour. Usually invite some buddies over, shoot the bull and have a few drinks to help pass the monotony.

Jim

[ecp]

Drinks are always nice with friends. Get an RO bucket (or plan for one in the future) and you will not have this question again because you will always be boiling the same % sap.

[TheNamelessPoet]

Drinks are always nice with friends. Get an RO bucket (or plan for one in the future) and you will not have this question again because you will always be boiling the same % sap.

Exactly what I was about to say. My min is 10 gallons of .5% because of the RO. If it is less than 10 gallons and .5% or under I toss it. If it is above that in %... I just recirculate into the same container for a couple hours and then BOOM it is up to a higher %.

I will admit, i have cleaned my pan with under 1% before, just to bring to a pull off as much gunk and impurities as I can periodically in the season. Usually, I use the water from the Ice I take from the bucket. Most of the time that is under .25%. 5 gallons at .25% is close to .01 of a gallon of sap. maybe 1 OZ or so.

I prefer things clean, so I am not of the just sweeten the pan at the begining of the season and go until then end (nor am I condemning doing that so calm down guys lol) so I try at LEAST every 2 weeks or so when I have a day that I do not have to boil (really anything after 10 days) ill spend maybe 20 minutes or so clening up the pan and the stuff I use with it, and that sub .5% is great for that. It isnt getting everything perfectly clean, but helps with niter buildup and stuff like that.