Maple syrup! 21 taps in so far, 14 the first day and 7 the next. I expect a quart of sap per tap and I'll have to burn one 20lb tank of propane to get 2gal of finished syrup. I'll probably do the first sap collection in a few days.
Discussion
First sap collection of the maple sugaring season. Collected 50gal off 32 taps. First taps went in a week ago, added more throughout the week. Looking to get around a gallon of syrup from this collection. I also got to test out the new collection skid I made so we can use our 2 haflinger draft horses to collect the sap instead of the tractor. I think it will work just fine.
After collecting the 50gal of maple sap, it is filtered with a homemade reverse osmosis system. This sap is 1,8% sugar to start, the filter removes water into a separate container and concentrated sap is sent back to the collection tank. It took 3hrs to remove 10gal of water from the sap and the pump uses 28w of power, a very low energy way to remove lots of water. As the sap gets more concentrated it takes longer to remove water. Once concentrated a much as the filter can handle, the remaining water is boiled off with a propane burner. This the third season using the reverse osmosis membranes and they are still working efficiently. The filter paid for itself in propane savings the first season. Now it's all about good maintenance to see how long before the membranes need to be replaced.