Worst sugar sand ever

[maple flats]

I believe the sugar sand is the worst ever this year for me. I have to reverse flow at 2 hrs and then clean the pan at 4 hrs. I have always cleaned daily but I never had to in 4 hrs before.
What are you guys getting for sugar sand? Is yours real bad too?

[Rossell's Sugar Camp]

I wouldnt know because this is my first year using this pan but it seems like last year i got barely no sugar sand compared to this year.

[Kev]

I had more all season than I have ever seen. my pan is reversable. so I had been opening the valve on the otherside of my syrup every 4 hours untill a bunch of sand ran out. then filter it out and pour the sap back in. it really helped hold down what I was getting in the syrup pan.well at least i think it did anyway. but I ran lighter syrup all season than I ever have so its a fair trade to me lol.
lid on the pan now with vinager water steaming. seasons over here except for the final clean up tomorrow and some more bottling

[Haynes Forest Products]

I clean my pans every night regardless of the sand.....but its heavy. I have a 3rd pan now and its caused a differant way of doing things. I used to clean on the arch but now I need to clean the diry pan off the heat source and thats another problem. .All in all its going good

[3rdgen.maple]

Last year I had smilar result as you but I could go about 5 to 6 hours before I had to clean out the niter. This year I have boiled for a couple weeks and not had any niter concrete buildup, that is until tonight. Pans have been all shiny on the bottom and now they are caked. I do cleanup on a regular basis and it sure has been a pleasure this year doing a water cleanup instead of a vinegar soak. Oh well it was good while it lasted.

[maple flats]

I've been thinking how a second pan would help being wood fired. I could not just shut off the heat and swap like oil fired does. I would need to make my pans quick disconnect, let fire tapper off and pump a little of the contents from the current pan into the clean pan, raise the dirty pan and put the clean one in under neath, then pump the rest of the contents into the clean pan and add wood. Are there any other methods with wood fired? It takes about 75-90 minutes for the coals to burn out on my rig. I would also need to put my pan cover on the clean pan to keep any soot etc from falling into the clean pan while the dirty one was above it. With my hood I have about 18 maybe 20" clearance to do this and my pan in only about 10-11" tall I think, I'll need to measure to be sure.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Sand light down here this year but so is the sugar content. About as bad as I have ever seen it. 5 years ago it was 57 to 1 and this year is going to be about that or maybe worse.

[maple flats]

I keep forgetting to check my sugar in the sap but I think mine is near normal which is between 1.8 and 2.25 on most days based on how it is boiling. When I have checked in years past I have had a low of 1.6 and a high of 3.75. The year I hit 3.75 on one day I had about 25% of my taps were roadside, now it is less than 5%. The 3.75 was one day not the season average but it was real sweet boiling that day and the draws were by far the best I ever had. An RO next year will make the draws much better than that.

[Fred Henderson]

My sugar content is running about 2.25 and the sand is about normal also. Fred

[sfsshadow]

we can barely get through the day on the front pan. saving on DE, though.

[wnybassman]

My last two batches I finished on the stove had real bad sand, about the worst I've seen. Popping and booming like crazy in the pot.

[concord maple]

What is the exact cause of the sand? Is it low sugar content in the sap, sap that is getting cloudy and "yellow" (not fresh), or what? Had alot of sugar sand this week compared to the previous weeks. Sap went from 2.5% down to 1.5% during this past week.