alcohol as sanatizer

[mountainvan]

I read one post about alcohol as a sanitizer for spiles and am going to try it this year. for anyone who has used it, do you have any suggestions on its use. thanks.

[NH Maplemaker]

Mountainvan, I take an old tapping drill and drill a hole the size of my spile in the plastic cap on bottle.Place bottle in pockect of tapping apron. Stick spile in hole give a shake and wipe with clean rag and stick in tap hole, Works great!! I do not spray in tap hole as some have said they do!!

Jim L.

[maple flats]

I am going to use hydrogen peroxide (food grade) It saintises and is safe with food equipment and if spilled it breaks down into water and oxygen, how much safer can you get? To get it do an on line search for 35% food grade hydrogen peroxide, I used google.

[powerdub]

I do the same as maplemaker. It does make a difference.

[Pete S]

We, my wife and I, went to a "seminar' about tappin' trees. The presenter has done this for a decade or so...............they use a 10% bleach solution, and it seems to work great.

Another comment was that the He "felt" the bleach inhibited the healover issues with tappin' a bit early as they do there. This is a "nature park" and they host a Tappin' Day, then 1400+/- 4th graders come during the boil down so they streach it out a bit.

[mountainvan]

I used bleach as a taphole sanitizer for years and never had a problem with anything. got an ro last year and bleach and ro membranes do not mix!! so last year nothing this year alcohol. happy with the beginning for me, the test will be thursday/friday. hung buckets yesterday, so if I get 1 gallon/bucket I should get 1600 gals, or more, from my tubing. unless bacteria has started fouling my tapholes.