275 gallon totes...... help

[hitnspit]

OK i have a chance to get 2 totes each 275 gallon. Now the question is will they be ok for sap holding. They had a food grade soy product in them. Have been told that it will boil off. any help with this would be sweet. Thanks.....jim

[twocanines]

What food grade soy product may be helpful to know. If it was Soy Sauce it will have a flavor to it and you may need to need to clean the snot out of them to be sure you don't flavor your sap.

[PerryW]

I bought a couple 55 gal food grade drums that had cherry syrup in them. I washed, and bleached, and washed, and washed them but when they filled with the sap, it tasted just like a cherry cola (la, la, la, la, lola)

[Clarkfield Farms]

c-o-l-a cola.... lol!

Wash well. Rinse well. Fill, let sit full for days, this HELPS but does not always cure; I haven't had to do this with totes (my 275-gal tote previously held canola oil and took a LOT of water and more than 4 hours of constant washing and rinsing), but with other plastic items that I've used for brewing and winemaking it's helped a great deal. Letting the water sit in them helps to "leach"(??? - maybe that's not scientifically correct but that's what I call it)) the flavors/odors from the plastic. The only thing I can never fix is the odor and flavor of hops. It won't come out of plastic no matter what. You may find the same thing with certain concentrated flavors; that's why I'd recommend that you find a tote that had something more neutral in it. Dave (maple flats) scored one that had pure natural vanilla extract in it, and he noted that one of the characteristics frequently associated with the flavor profile of maple syrup is vanilla, so it's actually on the plus side of the equation. BTW, this is true of maple, some oaks (especially white oak), etc., and is what contributes to the flavor profile of whiskeys and bourbons, even wines that age in toasted oak barrels. Maplers don't toast our sap/syrup but we do heat it up enough to caramelize it to a certain extent and therby gain a similar vanilla profile.

As for soy oils boiling off? eh, I don't know. Volatile oils are one thing, maybe, but I think you're way better off washing and rinsing. IF you decide to use anything, make sure that it's specifically made for coming into contact with things that will come in contact with peoples innards! I've talked to a few people over the years that just haven't used common sense in what they use for cleaning... lye (yes, DRANO and Liquid Plumber!), etc. -please never use that stuff. For oily substances like what's in your tote, maybe try Dawn* dish soap for grease cutting, but rinse way more than you think you need to. Soaps and detergents are absorbed by plastics and released back into future contents; ever try using a scrub bucket as a holding tank for tropical fish? They're dead. First aquarium we ever had when we were kids, back in the late 60's, my brother grabbed the "big bucket" and we kept them in that, with some of their old water, for about 10 minutes while we cleaned the tank... lesson learned. Pet store owner where we got them told us that it happens all the time. Anyways, you should be fine with using sensible products in sensible amounts with crazy unsensible lots of rinsing. :)

It's funny that we never think ahead and get the things ready in advance that require the use of lots of water when it's the hot, hot summer time; nah, let's FREEEZE!!! lol! I know I did.. freeze, that is. I wish you good success with yours.

- Tim

[MISugarDaddy]

I had a similar experience with a tote I got that had a similar product in it. I washed it with pure hot water and dish soap and then immediately rinsed it out well like the others have recommended. That process got the oil residue out, but not the smell, so I mixed some bleach with some water, like they recommend for sanitizing RV water systems. I put enough in it to cover the entire bottom, and then rolled it on each side for about 10 minutes and onto the top as well, then rinsed it out thoroughly. Then to get rid of any smell from the bleach, I poured in 5 gallons of white vinegar and repeated what I had done with the bleach. (This again is a recommended sanitation process for an RV to get rid of the bleach taste.) After rinse the vinegar out of the tank well I could no longer detect any smells in the tank. Good luck.

[ehausinfrats]

I got lucky on mine. THey had concentrated fructrose in them. THey cleaned out well with no odor.

Eric

[maple flats]

I had a similar experience with a tote I got that had a similar product in it. I washed it with pure hot water and dish soap and then immediately rinsed it out well like the others have recommended. That process got the oil residue out, but not the smell, so I mixed some bleach with some water, like they recommend for sanitizing RV water systems. I put enough in it to cover the entire bottom, and then rolled it on each side for about 10 minutes and onto the top as well, then rinsed it out thoroughly. Then to get rid of any smell from the bleach, I poured in 5 gallons of white vinegar and repeated what I had done with the bleach. (This again is a recommended sanitation process for an RV to get rid of the bleach taste.) After rinse the vinegar out of the tank well I could no longer detect any smells in the tank. Good luck.
I don't really think I want to roll my RV, I'll try another method.
I cleaned one with vanilla extract and it cleaned easily. I am now working on one that had canola oil and I have one in the wings that had safflower oil. I start with a sprinkler set up inside, tilt so the valve drains well and run it for 3-4 hrs. On the pure vanilla extract I used municipal water, the others I am using permeate while running the RO after I have enough permeate stored to clean the RO. The RO permeate pressure runs the sprinkler well. My sprinkler is on a tripod and I lower it thru the open cap. When done I have a cord on the tripod which folds it up as I lift to remove the tripod.

[sugarwoodacres]

5 gallon bucket with hottest water you can get , add 1 bottle of white vinegar and rinse around inside tank , then wash with a 5 gal bucket plain hot water . Ive been flushing coolers, 55 gall barrels for deer feeders and my sap holders with that mix .

[jmp]

I have three 275s and I love them. Works great for my operation and I am fortunate to have a source for very clean ones that held corn syrup. Like others have said, make sure you can get the odor out of the plastic or you may not be happy with them. We put a cone pre-filter over the opening on the top as our first sap filter. Bungee cord it and it works great. Good luck!

[Gissert]

I got my first 275 this year. It contained a liquid yeast and the residual had a very stron ammonia smell. I flushed it out with water til it ran clear out the drain, then filled it with a bleach/water mixture and drove around for a few miles.

I drained it, and the ammonia smell was gone, but the bleach smell was there. Filled and drained two more times, and its clean as a whistle with no odor.

Last year, I got two 55 gallon drums that contained chicken broth. I rinsed, and scrubbed with dawn and hot water. Rinsed again, and then bleached, follwed by two more rinses. I could still catch a wiff of the broth, but it was faint. I was nervous, but the syrup that came from those barrels was just fine.

[Clarkfield Farms]

>buck-buck-buck-buckAW!< :) So now even maple syrup tastes like chicken?!?!?! oh no!:o

[happy thoughts]

I got my first 275 this year. It contained a liquid yeast and the residual had a very stron ammonia smell. I flushed it out with water til it ran clear out the drain, then filled it with a bleach/water mixture and drove around for a few miles.

Be very very careful here. Two things that you never want to mix together ever and most especially where ventilation is poor, is ammonia and bleach. Many people have died quickly from the toxic fumes given off when ammonia and bleach are mixed.

http://chemistry.about.com/od/toxicchemicals/a/Mixing-Bleach-And-Ammonia.htm

[Gissert]

Good saftey point, and thanks! Not sure if it was ammonia or not, or just part of the yeast odor. I was not aware of the ammonia/bleach reaction. It certainly had that odor. I flushed all of that out prior to adding the bleach, and that smell was gone when I put the bleach in.

[RileySugarbush]

Gissert,

Did you buy those from the guy in Hopkins on Craigslist? I was thinking of picking one up but was concerned about the yeast smell. Still plan on heading over and checking them out though.

[RunInCircles]

I picked up two of these this year and cleaned out with soap, hot water and a pressure washer. Still have a faint smell of the organic olive oil. Heck, maybe I won't have to use as much defoamer? Haven't boiled yet, so we'll see.

5574

[Brent]

We have about 8 of them. Got ours after they had been used for Coke or Pepsi syrup. We washed them really well and left them sit with fans blowing fresh air into them for 2 weeks and they still smelled of vanilla, the main flavor in Coke. Fortunately vanillin is one of the common bacteria that make up the flavor of maple syrup. Never noticed it in the sap or syrup. It was undetectable after the first season.

We cut holes in the tops after the first season, about 2' x 2' feet and got a gutter cleaning wand for the pressure washer. Without something like this it is virtually impossible to clean the inside tops. Works great.

We have 3 in the bush with releasers on top, one for concentrate, 2 for permeate and a couple uphill for raw sap coming in.

Love them. Cheap, Lightweight.

[Gissert]

Riley -

That was my source. It cleaned up very well.

[tuckermtn]

quick question on 275 tote tanks- do they fully drain out the bottom valve?

[heus]

Yes they pretty much drain out fully. Not 100% like a bulk tank but id say 98%

[Dennis H.]

They would drain completely if the bottom would lay flat.
The plastic bottom on both of mine kind of have a small hump in the middle which causes some liquid to stay in the corners. If I raise the opposite side of the tank from the valve about 1" I will end up with just a tiny bit in the coners on either side of the bulge where the valve goes.

[maple maniac65]

they drain well if they are mounted in back of the dump truck