A few more maple syrup questions (technical) JDMARIS

1. On old growth maples what would 20 taps give in gallons of sap? I know there are variables but a rough average? 2. How long (hours) does it take to boil down lets say 40 gallon of sap, not sure how much an 2x6 evaporator holds.

A 2 foot by 6 foot pan can boil off around 80 gallons of sap in a full 10 hour day. That's 12 square feet of surface area. 6 1/2 gallons per day, per square foot. It will be about the same for anything else you want to use, if you manage to keep it at a full boil.

20-25 well placed taps will get you around 40 gallons of sap on a good day.

Sometimes young trees, and roadside or front-yard trees produce better then large deep-woods trees. But, much depends on how they've been maintained. Trees with big tops often run the sweetest.

A few years ago, the "maple experts" in my area were pushing tapping young trees with small taps - 1/4" instead of the usually 7/16". Seems that idea didn't last very long.

There are many good Websites and cheap books on the subject. Like antique tractors people, some maple people also get invovled because they love doing it - and not for the money. Making syrup can be hard, miserable work without a lot of tangible pay back (again, like fixing old tractors). But, it gets you into the woods, and doing something that is very old. I've known old geezers in their 90s that could barely walk, but still loved sugar-season.

After you boil down 80 gallons of sap, how much do you have left?

It depends on sugar content but it usually takes 40-50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.

You can figure 20 good taps over the one month season will net around 400-500 gallons of sap on gravity. Double that for vacuum lines. You can also plan on about 10 good days. Those runs need to be boiled off rapidly (same day is best) to avoid bacterial growth. If the weather turns cold, the sap will have a longer shelf life. You can also boil off half the volume and save the fortified sap for several days until you boil again.

A 2x6 pan will need fire under all of it. If your propane burner only covers a 12" circle, you are doing only slightly better than a turkey fryer.

Time to boil is too vague. It depends on a lot of variables the most important being a large BTU input that is sheltered from the wind and placed at the right height. You will probably become sleep deprived at some point. You can't leave a boiling pan to eat dinner or watch your favorite TV program.

Some will say that a low volume producer should partially freeze his sap in gallon jugs in a freezer and discard the ice. If that is done 3 or 4 times, you might get to 30%-40% sugar. Finish the balance in a pot to get to 66%.

"Freezing the sap" used to be sort of automatic when we did all our sugaring with buckets and spiles. There would often be 1/3 ice on top that we'd chuck - along with the occasional dead mouse.

But, I've eaten a lot of that ice and it's still sweet. So chucking it certainly wastes some sugar.

Thus the reason why bigger producers use reverse osmosis machines to get the water out before boiling.