Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

I'm wondering if plastic or metal buckets are better for sap capturing.

I think I've only ever seen metal ...

And what's all the long tubing for? I thought the bucket hooks right on the spout ....

The one method is to have a metal spile in the tree and hanging metal buckets at the spile.
The weight of the sap pulls on the spile and for us it pulled a few out.

We have used food grade plastic buckets (catliter came in them and had a handy lid) and stood them at the base of the tree. Then we used plastic spiles with a short drop of tubing straight through a hole in the lid. That way we can have 2-3 spiles per bucket. The lid keeps the squirrels and snow out. The bucket was big enough not to have to go every day and empty. If you do that, clean out snow from under the bucket before you place it and drill the hole. The first time we did it, we had a few with 1 ft of snow below the bucket when we tapped. When snow melted, the bucket fell over.

The commercial producers are using the plastic tubing and a vacuum pump to literally suck out more and collect it in their big barrels.

Thank you for your feed back. I think I'll go with hanging a metal bucket. True to my nature I'll micromanage the sap and collect at least daily LOL.

First year doing it so the simplier the better for me, and I'll be so pumped I'll probably have a coffee and watch it drip into the bucket. :running-chicken:

i use plastic all the way. they wear out after about 6 years from the sun eroding the plastic....but by then you are ready to replace them anyways because of the stains.

plastic drop lines, and plastic buckets WITH LIDS. VERY IMPORTANT WITH LIDS!!!!!

first year i just ran lines and well, the deer were drinking from the buckets, and we drowned some squirrels.
same with hanging buckets.....get lids or you will drown squirrels. yes, yucky. personally i don't want that in my syrup.

when you do drop lines (if you use them) make sure if you have snow on the ground you account for how much the bucket will drop to the ground as the snow melts. otherwise it will pull the drop line out of the bucket as spring warms up. :rofl1:

make sure if you use metal you buy new equipment. lots of used equipment on the market has lead soldering, which you don't want to use, because the lead can leach into the sap/syrup.

it's one of the best tasting hobbies i've found yet. when you boil do it outside if you can, otherwise you'll fog your house like crazy, and the walls and roof will be damp and/or dripping. make maple tea....while boiling, fill a travel mug and throw in a tea bag. YUM.

I do not think you can buy new metal (aluminum) buckets, they are not manufactured any more. We use stainless steel metal hooks and 2nd hand aluminum buckets with metal lids.

JimW wrote:I do not think you can buy new metal (aluminum) buckets, they are not manufactured any more. We use stainless steel metal hooks and 2nd hand aluminum buckets with metal lids.

I cant seem to type below the box .. Anyways ... Think they are stainless steel Jim. Berry Hill.

Oh i did somehow type below ... Ok, i'll get it sorted eventually haha

WLLady wrote:i use plastic all the way. they wear out after about 6 years from the sun eroding the plastic....but by then you are ready to replace them anyways because of the stains.

plastic drop lines, and plastic buckets WITH LIDS. VERY IMPORTANT WITH LIDS!!!!!

first year i just ran lines and well, the deer were drinking from the buckets, and we drowned some squirrels.
same with hanging buckets.....get lids or you will drown squirrels. yes, yucky. personally i don't want that in my syrup.

when you do drop lines (if you use them) make sure if you have snow on the ground you account for how much the bucket will drop to the ground as the snow melts. otherwise it will pull the drop line out of the bucket as spring warms up. :rofl1:

make sure if you use metal you buy new equipment. lots of used equipment on the market has lead soldering, which you don't want to use, because the lead can leach into the sap/syrup.

it's one of the best tasting hobbies i've found yet. when you boil do it outside if you can, otherwise you'll fog your house like crazy, and the walls and roof will be damp and/or dripping. make maple tea....while boiling, fill a travel mug and throw in a tea bag. YUM.

We have so many chipmunks etc., its not my plan to put on ground. If it doesn't give us a good deep freeze soon I won't have to worry about collecting anything from the trees.
Definitely will be doing outside! I remember your comment from before .., the added flavour from the smoke. And maple tea is a definite!!!
Intention is to buy new ... I think I marked a dozen or so trees. So shouldnt be too costly for first year.

SandyM wrote:

JimW wrote:I do not think you can buy new metal (aluminum) buckets, they are not manufactured any more. We use stainless steel metal hooks and 2nd hand aluminum buckets with metal lids.

I cant seem to type below the box .. Anyways ... Think they are stainless steel Jim. Berry Hill.

Sandy

Do you mean the buckets are stainless? All metal buckets I have seem are aluminum, I have about 50 from several sources, all aluminum. Berry Hill and Atkinson Maple both say aluminum in the description of their metal buckets.

Jim

Sure. Aluminum. yes you are right.