Yesterday was an amazing day/evening in the sugarhouse as we produced 75 gallons of delicious maple syrup. We had approximately 3200 gallons of 2% sap to process from the last 2 days and thankfully the Reverse Osmosis machine concentrated the sap to 8%. Between firing the evaporator with wood every 10-15 minutes, watching the syrup thermometer for the correct temperature of 219 degrees, testing the sugar content for 66.9% (Brix), filtering the syrup through the filter press to remove sugar sand, grading and tasting the maple syrup, :-) and filling another barrel of syrup kept us busy all day long. Whew!! But, this is what we look forward to each year and know the season can be short, but sweet!
Now, the important weather information. We had a low of 31 last night and the forecast today is a high of 48, becoming sunny. Tonight the low will be somewhere near 33 (probably lower in the woods and cool breeze off the lake) with sun and 65 on Friday! Crazy warm “April”weather in March! The sap should flow well this afternoon and even faster tomorrow. That being said, one is wise to never predict sap flow - just be amazed by the awesome flow or lack of it.
For any of you science geeks who want to know more specifics on sap:gallon of sugar, here is some interesting info from the University of Vermont Procter Maple Research Center, where they know “all things maple”. Their website is fascinating if you are interested in anything related to maple trees, sap, research . . . http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc/
The Jones "Rule of 86" :
The gist of the rule is that if one divides 86 by the sugar content of sap, you can estimate the amount of sap required to produce a gallon of syrup.
S=86/X andW=S-1
Where: S = the initial volume of sap (or concentrate) required to produce 1 gallon of syrup
X = the starting sap (or concentrate) sugar concentration in °Brix.
W = the amount of water to be boiled off to produce 1 gallon of syrup
Without delving too deeply into the chemistry of sugar solutions or the math, a much closer approximation of the amount of sap (or concentrate) needed to produce one gallon of syrup at a density 66.9°Brix, the formula needs to be slightly adjusted again. (We concentrate our sap to 8%)
S = 88.2/X-0.32 and W = S-1
°Brix S (gal)
8.0 10.71