Maple syurp

So we have made 6 collects so far and have finished 22 gallons of syrup. But here's the problem. The first 3 collects finished off pretty clear but the last few collects have finished off so dark you can't see through It. And we have had to filter about twice what we would normally do. Never have I seen such dirty finished sap. The sap out of the bucket Is just fine.
When you get towards the end of the season this Is what happens but we are just getting started. So does anyone know why this Is happening?

Are you tapping Hard/sugar maple or Soft/red maple too , and mixing sap ?

We are tapping nothing but hard maple.

Only matters what it taste like.

Spot On It tastes just fine.

old or dirty lines and taps? More microbes lead to darker syrup at the end of the season.

some friends were cooking yesterday said the early sap seemed to have a lot less sugar than the stuff they were cooking yesterday

We have had that happen before. We took 400 gallons of hot clorox water to the woods with a small army of people and scrubbed all the collection tanks and even the sap buckets (1200 of them). We went right back to making light syrup. Almost guarantee that you have excess bacterial growth in your equipment.

Will have to look Into that.

Syrup is a bit darker right now for us because sugar is running below average. Also FYI warm sap temperatures can also cause it to get darker. Some years the sugar sand is bad too. So far collected 1600 gallons of sap with a 2.4 percent sugar content.

Syurp and vechiles....love it.

Other then about 12 days of very cold weather we have had a a very warm winter here In southern WI. That may have contributed to this darker syrup.

Sap content in our area is running below normal as stated by the processor we take our sap too. This year he has cooked about 10k gallons of sap most of which was 2% or less. We have delivered to him about 2700 gallons that average about 2.7% his highest producer. We have about 400 more for me to haul out tomorrow and then it looks like a slower week. Down to 20 here tonight so any sap won't get bad for sure. Cold north wind shuts the trees right down. All in all it has been a slower year for us to date.

Bryce

Back when I was helping my neighbors they took their lines down at the end of each season and washed thoroughly prior to them being put away. They had a map of the sugarbush with all lines marked and the lines were labelled. The lines were layed out prior to the trees being tapped. Everything ran into stainless holding tanks at the sap house. Never seen them produce dark syrup prior to the end of the run. Cleanliness for them was necessary to produce an above average product.

There were other producers nearby that left their lines up year round.

Not saying that's the problem but bacteria does effect the end product.