Pickle Buckets for sap collection.

[Starting Small]

I have a large supply of pickle buckets available to me from a school. I have not tried to clean them yet besides a quick rinse and it does have a slight smell of pickles to them. Would these be alright for sap collection or would it give the syrup an off flavor?

[Ecnerwal]

You have to get the smell out. Otherwise you'll have a nasty off-flavor.

Soak in bleach/water solution, then soak in hot water and dishwasher detergent "with enzymes" (seemed to work better for me than the other sort.)

Baking soda in hot water might also help.

Repeat as needed, or look at the labor cost and decide to buy tubing ;-)

[Starting Small]

Good ideas, thank you. I actually bought some tubing and was hoping to connect 3 taps or so into each 5 gallon bucket. In my mind it makes alot of sense but we will see when I get out in the woods and get started. Last year was all milk jugs and whatever other containers I could scrounge up!

[Starting Small]

I also came across this steel drum for bulk storage. Would anyone use this to hold sap until it is ready to boil? http://hartford.craigslist.org/grd/2823862898.html

[Ren]

My experience is that it does not effect the final product at all. I have pails and barrels that have had stinky cheese, olives, pickles and other things in them. I wash them all really well and soak them in a weak bleach solution. I then rinse with a lot of fresh water and they are good to go. Some of them still have a slight odor but the sap is not in there long enough to worry about it. I have never had any one say that the syrup tastes funny. Actually my syrup has won first and second the last couple of years at our local fall fairs.