Clean up

[Birdland Sugarbush]

The finish line is in sight – the sap may run this week, but I have obligations and an upcoming trip. I don't think the sap will keep for a week, so I'm looking at cleaning up for the season.

Any recommendations for cleaning up my equipment?
Evaporator, buckets, filters, etc?

I want to do it right this time of year instead of finding some unpleasant surprises next season.

Thanks,
chris

[Bricklayer]

Last year i left a couple of buckets in close to where i boil and pulled the rest, waited till they were full and filled my evaporator pans right to the rim with old yellow moldy sap, waited 3 months and came back and it had turned back into almost like a vinegary substance and the pan was like new, dumped it out rinsed it with water and good to go, the buckets i just fill my holding tank with water and vinegar and open the valves and flush them out and let em sit upside down for a couple of hours and stack them and put em away for the year, same with spiles, holding tank is clean after a water flush and so are the buckets, hope this helps, if you dont want to use sap, it gets really rank smelling just use vinegar and water justg rinse it really good after.

[Revi]

I just put a couple of gallons of vinegar into about 15 gallons of water and dumped it into the evaporator. I am going to leave it for a couple of weeks and then start scrubbing. I want to wait until the snow goes away, so I can bring over a big tank of water. The sugarhouse is still buried in snow even though it has dissapeared from pretty much everywhere else.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

well the 200 dinero pump from tractor supply worked awesome. Hooked it to the main line which would normally dump into collection tank and fired it up. As fast as I could run through the woods to the top water started to spray, then ran through woods pulling all taps water spraying out. Easiest woods clean up ever for me.

[red maples]

the vinegar in the pans works good. but heat seems to be the catalist. mine has been sitting for about 1.5 weeks and tomorrow I will put a quick fire in there bring it to just a boil then shut it down again.

[sap retreiver]

This is all for stainless, how about english tin? Am I going to desroy my bosses pan with vinegar or will it do the same? Normally it's just elbow grease in between most every boil. I'm still getting a little grayish tan build up around the sap level, it's a flat 2x4 with a nice burnt half moon in the back by the stack. Thanks