Wasn’t planning on sugaring this year, but decided to play with the 3/16 tubing, so put in 10 taps today. I don’t have much for 3/16 fittings, so I used 5/16 on the trees and then dropped to 3/16 for the drop down the hill. Maybe 30’ vertical drop on the 3/16. Might add some more taps tomorrow and then setup the 2x3 evaporator. I have another area with 50 taps on 5/16, but I’m not tapping there this year due to spraying a bunch of invasives there in the fall.
Reading some of the UVM research, and it suggests those using buckets on the ground should try 3/16 tubing and tap at 6 or 7 feet up. In one trial they got 40% more sap over the season as compared to using the old standard 5/16 as the drop lines to the bucket. Anyone here doing this (3/16 to buckets)?
Here's what I ended up with on the first run a couple weeks ago Flame. I use the 5/16 tubes going to the ground but not near 6-7 ft. This was yesterday after emptying Sat afternoon. 40 gal Friday and 20 gal Sunday with about another 20 gal in them now which i'll deal with tomorrow. The boiler is brewing right now.
Is it the picture, or is that syrup REALLY dark? I much prefer the cooking grade flavor over the light amber.
Interesting stuff Flamestead! We tapped a bit lower on the trees this year than I had before and I’ve been a little disappointed in the amount of sap we’ve been collecting. Though I don’t know if I can really attribute it to anything for sure. Maybe it just seems that way since I got that evaporator to play with now. I was considering putting a few more taps in this week and now I don’t think I’ll be afraid to experiment a little for myself. So to make a long story a bit longer, Amy asked me while we were tapping how people learned how to do it. I told her Im pretty sure the native Americans showed the European settlers how to do it. No, that’s not what she meant: how did they know? Well, we found a likely answer a few trees later. There was one tree that was all wet on one side and it was sticky (didn’t tap that one). Some bug or bird had poked a series of holes thru the bark, and it was weeping from there. So there you go. Point of this story, is those holes were in a line about 10’ up the tree.
Not going as big as last year 9152 so its all being finished quite a bit longer than usual. I don't do that part so cant really fill ya in on it. Looks like old motor oil and drips the same. Turned out very nice Yoops.
First run Grade A on the right. Second run Grade D on the left. That's ok, I like the darker syrup better.
Sounds like fun! Note that the tap height isn’t the direct cause of increased sap flow in their study. Rather, it is the sap drop in the narrow tube, which creates a natural vacuum. A higher tap with traditional tubing should result in traditional yields. We had solid freezes the past two nights (20 degrees at sunrise). It would be fun to have a nice setup and a lot of taps out this week!
Well I’m no vacuum-ologist, but I don’t see why the same principal (Venturi) couldn’t still apply for 5/16. The affect simply wouldn’t be as great.
I’m no specialist in this area, either! Here’s what they did... “A second experiment involved tapping trees six and a half to seven feet high and running the long drop line to a bucket on the ground. In this case each tree had two taps. One tap a regular 5/16” spout attached to 3/16” tubing and the second tap a regular 5/16” spout connected to a 5/16” drop line. This was repeated six times for a total of twelve buckets, 6 with 3/16” drop and 6 with 5/16” drop. See the pictures below. The season long yield difference between the two systems was 43% more sap in the buckets collecting sap from the 3/16” drop lines or 6.4 more gallons of sap per tap.” Results in from 2016 3/16” tubing research | Tapping & Tubing | The Maple News
Just a guess, but if the combination of the adhesion of the sap to the walls of the tube and the cohesion of the molecules in the sap allowed the sap to fill the entire cross section of the 3/16 tube but not the 5/16 tube, then the 3/16 would develop a vacuum while the 5/16 wouldn’t. One atmosphere of water column is 33.8 feet. So a 6’ column of sap filling a 3/16” tube would generate 14.7 (-6/33.8)psi = -2.6psi of vacuum. Perhaps in the 5/16, the sap just runs down the side of the tube but doesn’t fill it so no vacuum is generated. Again, just a guess. I didn’t read the article.
Well, it’s too late anyway I already started my experiment. Though I only have 5/16 stuff so my only variable is the height. Same tree, same sized container. One of the taps is around 2’ and the other is at 6’. Im up to 30 taps in now. We’ve got a winter storm coming this weekend, hoping for a good run to come out of the freeze.
Lost ya at 'Just a guess' muck. 3rd day here brewing down the same run and should have about 2 gallon by tomorrow. Next 2 weeks aint looking too good as the day time highs are only around plus 2c.
No - wish I was though... Its been really slow here this week. It was going great until the warm snap we had. I did do a batch over the weekend. I got some great advice from a friend and tried running it around 1” in the main pan. It went at least twice as fast and I drew off a quart of finished syrup at the end - no inside cooking required. It’s the darker one on the right.
Funny, I saw the breakfast beer bit in Loon’s sig, and checked what I had... looks like it fits the thread in two ways (not going to give this one a glowing recommendation - just ok).
