@#$%! I burned my pan!

[40to1]

Made over 3 gallons of syrup on my 2x3 yesterday (it was a long day). Was shutting down for the night and did the usual procedure, but somehow the whole thing was hotter than I thought and steamed down.
I scorched the pan near the outflow valve. Today I was able to chip and scrap it clean (curiously, under the burn the pan it is shiny-bright and new looking).

I have two questions:
The pan buckled a bit and now has a small "island" near the outflow valve. Can I fix it? Is the pan ruined? Or can I work around it?

The gallon of "syrup" I rescued was about 220˚ when I pulled it off (I chanced to see the thermometer somehow). Should bring it back down to syrup levels with some water, filter it, and is there a way to remove the slight burned taste? Does this just become cooking syrup, or does it go down the drain?

Your thoughts are appreciated....

[Treetapper]

The pan as long as it still seals around the outer perimeter (at the gasket) should be OK. The metal in that area is stretched from the extreme heat it saw. Very difficult to straighten out or shrink it back into shape again. The shiny part on the bottom is from the pan being super heated since you had no, or very little liquid (sap or syrup) in that area.The burnt syrup will always taste burnt. No way I know of to rid it of your misfortune. Don't beat yourself up too much, lots of us have torched a pan to some degree ( no pun intended). I have seven litres with a burnt flavor from 2009 if you want some more!

[tuckermtn]

with the warp in it you may want to run your sap/ syrup level a little deeper to see how the gradient sets up. You should be fine.

depending on how burn it tastes, you can add it to a larger batch of grade B and dilute the taste. But if its too strong, keep it as a souviner (sorry not a good speller)

[Haynes Forest Products]

Make BBQ sauce out of it and when you get to the part about.adding liquid smoke to the recipe your done. I made about 5 gallons once that burned its all over as far as syrup.............BUT you can slowly boil down nice and thick and make rock candy.........YUM

[Kev]

A blacksmith told me that if you heat warped metal HOT then rapidly cool the expanded part you can shrink it back. you will make it more brittle though.
He said the tuff part is reading the metal to see exactly where to apply the cold water, then how much.
I allways felt well, "he" can. I am sure I would just make things worse. lol

[unclebuck]

Welcome to the world of sugar making You can now call yourself a sugar maker I was told a long time ago that your not a sugar maker until you burn a pan I did it 4 years ago at the price of$1300 Didn't want to be a sugar maker that bad.
If you have an island just run a little deeper sap level but if it's a valley the sugar sand will accumulate in it and that is where it will burn
again WELCOME TO THE CLUB

[Sugarmaker]

I have so many peaks and valley's in these old pans, I have folks standing in line to cilmb them if Everest is not available.
Run a little deeper and watch it like a hawk!
Chris

[Starting Small]

I just came across this thread and was wondering if a burned pan is still usable? Sounds like it is but I just want to make sure it does not alter the taste of future boils?

[Bucket Head]

Nope, as long as you clean it up good- don't leave any black stuff in there. Leftover burnt stuff still left in a pan is what would alter the flavor of any syrup made in it after the scorching. Chip it off, scrape it, sand it, scotch-bright it, whatever it takes to get it all off, then your good to go.

Steve

[buckeye gold]

40to1, Those waves you see in your pan now, are called learning curves. I bet if everyone is honest most of us have seen them. I would say toss the syrup, but I had a local bee keeper ask me for any off flavor syrup or scorched syrup I had, he said his bees would eat it. I have no idea if he knows what he's talking about, but maybe someone here knows. He even said he'd take my niter laden sap when I clean out my pan, as long as it wasn't too water diluted. That may be an option. I hope I Have no syrup to give him, but he sounds like he's dealt with this before. It would ease the pain if there was a reasonable use for it. Any beekeepers here that have done this. I used to keep bees and fed them sugar water in winter so this sounds logical to me.

[Starting Small]

I am a beekeeper and would not feed that to my bees. Inside maple syrup, there are some indigestable materials that can cause dysentary for the bees. It might be alright if it is being fed in late spring when the bees can get out of the hive to take bathroom breaks but in the fall they will store the syrup/sugar and will be consuming it in the hive throughout winter. In the winter they will not be able to take those bathroom breaks because of the temperature and they will go to the bathroom in the hive which will cause the slow death of the colony.