Sap Storage in Marine Coolers

[bunkerchump]

Hi, This is my first year and starting small. I have ~14 producing taps and have been storing my Sap in food-grade 5-gallon plastic buckets. I have 2 large marine coolers and I can fit 3, 5-gallon buckets in each and they are heavily iced. I boiled my first batch last Monday including Monday's take. My question is will Sap store ok in this environment for a Sunday boil? (Sap collected Tuesday through Saturday - 5 full days for Tuesday's take) Here in CT Saturday is going to be very windy, cold, not great boiling weather considering I have an un-sheltered environment to boil. Additionally, last couple days have held above freezing even at night, so Sap production has been very little. But Saturday may be a decent run as temps will be back below freezing at night. I'd love to be able to gather some more sap before the boil. Your thoughts and help are appreciated.

Thanks,
John

[happy thoughts]

That should work as long as the sap is well iced going into the coolers. You might want to throw some additional ice around the buckets from time to time. If there's some room in the buckets after the bucket ice melts you could freeze some sap and throw some chunks directly into the buckets.

A cooler is going to help keep things cold longer but if it gets warmer inside the cooler than the temp outside, then it will keep things warmer. I hope you followed that lol. Anyhow, just use your best judgement. Good luck and have fun boiling:)

[Tom59]

Bunkerchump, that is exactly the way I store my sap. I collect all week then boil on the weekend. It works fine. What I do to keep it cold is take a few clean gatorade or water bottles with screw tops fill with water & freeze. When temps warm a bit I will float a couple of these in the cooler with sap. Keeps it nice & cold. When they thaw take them out, rinse & refreeze, reuse as needed. Tom

[bunkerchump]

Thanks "Happy Thoughts" and Tom. Tom, I like your idea of the gatorade bottles. I was going to put ice directly in the buckets, but sometimes it has a chlorine-smell which I'd rather not put in the sap. I get my ice from the firehouse where I am a volunteer. In the winter, there is no ice shortage unless the power goes out (which happened twice already in 4 months). So up until now, I really pack in every available cooler space with ice around the 5-gallon buckets, and check it when I collect my sap each day. Thanks again, John

[sugarwoodacres]

Should keep . just pay attention to its color . if it starts to get cloudy its not cold enough