Does anyone here have any experience with designing and setting up a tubing sap collection system?
This past winter, when I first moved into my new place, I did the regular tap & bucket thing and had seven taps, but this year I want to go a little bigger, but I don't want to be walking back and forth collecting twenty to thirty buckets twice a day, so I'm looking to set up a tubing system with anywhere from thirty to fifty taps (I still need to walk the woods and identify which trees I'm tapping).
I'm wondering what all I need to take into account, or nuances I should pay attention to, when trying to figure out where to locate the mainline and trunk lines. The land runs completely downhill through two small ravines to the collection point, and I'm planning to use natural vacuum, at least for now, though I do own a vacuum pump I could use in the future.
Any/all help or insight is welcome
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
I wish I had any familiarity. How do you condense the sap? Do you have one of those fancy machines or do you do a home-style method?
Also, how much syrup do you get out of seven taps in a season?
You condense it the old school way: you boil it. Long, slow, constant simmer for hours.
With Sugar Maples and Black Maples, it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of finished syrup.
With Reds, Silvers, and other varieties, it's more like 50, and as high as 65, gallons of sap to 1 gallon of syrup. Those trees have a lower sugar/carbohydrate content in the sap, and the sap doesn't generally flow as readily. Additionally, those trees all bud/flower in the spring and when they do so, the sap will turn bitter almost as soon as you get a stretch of warm days, so you have to know what you're tapping and pay attention to the weather.
Last winter, I got a total of 117 gallons of sap (I kept a daily collection log) from the seven taps, and made roughly 2.5 gallons of syrup.
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
Does anyone here have any experience with designing and setting up a tubing sap collection system?
This past winter, when I first moved into my new place, I did the regular tap & bucket thing and had seven taps, but this year I want to go a little bigger, but I don't want to be walking back and forth collecting twenty to thirty buckets twice a day, so I'm looking to set up a tubing system with anywhere from thirty to fifty taps (I still need to walk the woods and identify which trees I'm tapping).
I'm wondering what all I need to take into account, or nuances I should pay attention to, when trying to figure out where to locate the mainline and trunk lines. The land runs completely downhill through two small ravines to the collection point, and I'm planning to use natural vacuum, at least for now, though I do own a vacuum pump I could use in the future.
Any/all help or insight is welcome
Sap can't flow through a tube it's too sticky. (I have absoLUTLELY NO IDEA, I've never seen sap.
You don't want to walk you need to hire a couple of children to run buckets, (too labor costly.)
I opened this thread because I wanted to say. " Is that how they get the punch in Super Golden Crisp cereal?"
Pollitical: What you've described has parallels to the Keystone XL Pipeline, see, some trying to save money want to Pipe the oil, you the sap, from the source to the destination. Well the Democrats support; we need the oil anyway, we'll just have to truck it, or train car ship it, instead of building a useful pipeline, all at higher costs of course.
I still think practically, your best option is to find a couple of local kids who wouldn't mind walking buckets back and forth. I can't imagine a tubing system to collect tree sap, would work without several problems with clogging, just being too stiff or sticky to move, and kinks or tears or holes in the tubing. Ever tried to drain a swimming pool? And those just transport water, not sap.
Can Deshaun Watson play better for the Browns, than Baker Mayfield would have? ... Now the Games count.
Any help is welcome. ... Always grease new seals. If you are about to insert a new rubber washer in your tubing system grease it. Now! You won't want to use an industrial grease if you are transporting an edible sap. But there must be some reason to always grease new seals. Always grease new seals, must have to find some sort of edible greasing stuff.
What material is your tubing? I'd run a flexible plex tubing mainline because it holds up better than PVC IMO. Especially not under pressure and in the cold.
Never tapped trees but know about plumbing. And spend a little more to get quick connect fittings. Less leaking to fix than pex crimped fittings, unless you do them all the time.
And I would probably hang my mainline on the trees with big electric staples, the kind that look like two nails and a plastic ridge. Then just maintain at least 1/4" fall in every 10 feet of pipe. And a 1/2" or more would be better if you can make that happen.
I'd say that's all you need to be do. Of course other pipe will work, but pex is your best bet and probably cheapest way to go IMO. Then standard nylon tubing for the taps.
Last edited by OldColdDawg; 10/07/2110:17 PM.
Your feelings and opinions do not add up to facts.
