The Forestry Forum

Collection season has started down here... its my second year trying.
When collecting my sap there is often ice in the bucket. Got me to thinking... and admittedly my chemistry instruction never went past high school, and I barely passed that.
But that ice that's formed inside the bucket of sap, is it JUST water, that freezes? Do the sugars and elements that make the flavor stay behind in the mix, or does some get frozen into the ice?
It tastes flavorless, and got me to thinking, I have to boil off all the water anyways... can't I just fetch the ice out of the sap bucket when I'm collecting? Or am I tossing flavor out of the bucket when I remove the ice?

A concentrated sugar solution starts to freeze at about -9C or 15F, so if the overnight temps didn't drop below that, any ice is just water.  

For practical purposes, If there is ice floating in the pail, then throw it out. It's been tested many times. There may be a tiny bit of sugar lost by doing so, but very very little.
 If more than 1/2 of the pail is ice, then there is starting to be some sugar locked up in the ice.  Obviously if the whole pail is solid .....

Thanks @Big_eddy , we get into the 20's at night now, so it's usually just some thin light pieces.

NYS:
When you gather your sap place the ice in one container and the liquid in another.
Using a sap hydrometer check for the sugar content in the liquid portion.  It should be a number in the 1.0 to 8.0 range.  Then if you take 86 and divide by the sugar content hydrometer reading that will give you a fairly close number to the number of gallons you need to boil to get to one gallon of syrup.
When the ice melts do the same thing and let us know what your results were.
Note:  The reading accuracy is best using a tall sap hydrometer, the short ones work however they are much harder to accurately read.
GAB