Weird type of boil

[can'twaitforabigrun]

We fired up the evaporater this evening to take the 40 gallons we had gathered partly down to syrup, and it started boiling differently. It was as if if we were boiling 40 gallons of almost finished syrup instead of sap. It was a white boil, with small bubbles and lots of frothing, in a approx. 3 sq. ft. section in the center of the pan, instead of a clear boil with large bubbles in small sections throughout the pan, with the most vigourous boiling in the middle. I think it may be because today was the first time that the pan was throughly washed this season and the washing may have gotten rid of some of the nitre that was built up and caused hot spots to form. Also, possibly the sap may have had a high sugar conc. like 6% (we normally are 30-1) because of low sap yield per tap today (0.3 gallons per tap) and also the sap wasn't the very fresh as it started running around 8 am this morning and probably stopped by noon, as it got up to around 15 above. I would appericiate any other theories and would like to know if this has happened to anyone else. Thanks

[KenWP]

Are the trees showing any buds.

[jasonl6]

I had the same thing yesterday and today. Mine do have buds and i'm making C grade to sell bulk. Does C boil differently? Almost had some burn on me. Went from 7 to 25 on my therm in 2 mins.

Jason

[brookledge]

Commercial will have the tendency to burn easier in my opinion. I think it has to do with the difference in the type of sugar Sucrose,dextrose, fructose. As the syrup darkens the make up changes. Maybe Dr. Perkins can explain if I'm right
Keith

[can'twaitforabigrun]

No, there aren't any buds on the trees yet. Some of the soft maples which we don't tap, are slowly starting to show some buds, but none on the sugar maples yet. There is still 6 inches of snow on the north side of the bush and we haven't heard any peepers yet since there is just a bit of water on the pond and rest is still solid ice and snow. I know I should have started this thread on the boiling section, but I guess I was tired and thought it said boiling and filtering, instead of bottling and filtering.

[danno]

Sounds like end of the season sap to me. The stuff boils uncontrolably. I bet I used as much defoamer making 20 gallons last night as I did all season. I knew the sap was going to be "difficult", so I kept a close eye on both pans and defoamed the sap pan early and often. Even doing so, I had a sap eruption in my flue pan that was quite a sight. I bet I had 15 gallons boil over the sides all at once and the defoamer was of no help.

[DrTimPerkins]

Commercial will have the tendency to burn easier in my opinion. I think it has to do with the difference in the type of sugar Sucrose,dextrose, fructose. As the syrup darkens the make up changes. Maybe Dr. Perkins can explain if I'm right
Keith

End of season syrup has foaming issues for a lot of reasons....change in sugar composition to higher invert, more microorganisms (especially yeasts), niter build-up. You compounded the issue by cleaning the pans. When you do that, you remove all the defoamer residue that tends to build up during the season which helps to control the foam. When you start up with a freshly cleaned pan anytime during the season, foaming will be higher.

Just put more defoamer to it and keep a close eye on it.