Help

[mikek101]

I have a crude setup where I suspend hotel pans over some old cast iron tubs. I have 3 pans going in the tub. I transfer the sap from the first pan to the second pan to the third pan. The third pan I draw off my syrup. All transferring and draw off is done using a ladle.
The problem I've been having is the third pan is getting sugar sand burns on the side of the pan. Does anyone have a suggestion as to how to prevent this? Also it is difficult to clean, any shortcuts short of elbow grease?

Thanks

[hintonsugarshack]

switch your first and third pan the raw sap will clean the pan.

[Daren]

Hey Mike...I too have recessed pans in my setup and the sugar scortches on the sides as the levels fall. I have been scrubbing them with good old SOS pads and lots of elbow grease. I tried some commercial pan cleaner last week, and it took off the "yellowish tan" hue that the pans had collected beautifully, but did very little to help with the baked on stuff. The best way I have found so far is to boil water in them for a while and then pull them. Once they get to where you can scrub them without burning yourself, have at them. No matter what you do, it is going to be a real pain. I am planning to alter the system somewhat to keep some heat off the sides of the pan so that it will not burn on every time I boil. Sorry I don't have a better solution, and if you hear of one that you find works, let me know because the extra heat obtained from making the pans "drop flues" really gets the sap rippin! Just not sure it is worth the cleaning effort anymore.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Wire brush for a drill works good. several thousand rpm's per minute eat if off fast!

[MASSEY JACK]

My raised flue pan gets burned on sap above the liquid level at the stack. I put a piece of the arch board insulation in between the stack and the pan. I only put it above the liquid level as I did not want to sacrifice the heat transfer to the liquid below it. I have found that the 2 inch "cookie" discs we use on for gasket removal work well on that burned on crud. I always put water with it because it will heat up and stretch the pans if you put it there to long. I use a high speed air powered die grinder. Someone else said to use "CLR" in another post. He said it works good. Hope I never have to try it but you know how that goes. I would suggest that you raise your pans and forget about putting heat on the sides above the liquid level. You are not gaining much because you are sticking the sugar to the side of the pan and loosing it. This will likely cause you to make darker syrup and possibly alter the taste as well. Good luck

[Lance]

Brandon - What kind of wire brush can you use on stainless steel without scratching the hey out of the pan?

Along those lines, a friend helped me clean our pans the other day. I went to town for supplies and when I came back, I noticed he was using one of those Scotch-Brite scrubbies. It sure did a good job but it left scratch marks on the pan. I'm afraid that from now on the crud will just cake on those roughened spots. Anything i can do to restore the smoother surface of the original SS? Any other suggestions? Thanks!!

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

A few scratches never hut anything. :D :wink:

[DougM]

We took the CLR suggestion while we were boiling, and it works great. We had a BIG problem with sugar sand for the first time this year, so we just drained out the front pan and put about an inch of water and CLR in it, let it sit over night and it comes out easily.

YMMV, but it worked really well for us.

[mikek101]

Found my method of cleaning scorched pans. I work in a lab with environmental chamber. I put the pans in a high temperature (35C) high humidity (95% RH) for 8 hours (this got them nice and wet) then I placed them into a cold chamber -40C for 12 hours. The scorch marks scraped right off.

[Fred Henderson]

Found my method of cleaning scorched pans. I work in a lab with environmental chamber. I put the pans in a high temperature (35C) high humidity (95% RH) for 8 hours (this got them nice and wet) then I placed them into a cold chamber -40C for 12 hours. The scorch marks scraped right off.


Not very many of us have that acess to that kind of equipment. The best thing for scorched pans is not to scorch them.