SevenCreeksSap
12-03-2012, 09:10 PM
Trying to come up with a slightly better way and don't have the $$ for a water jacketed bottler yet, so here's what I'm thinking. I do have a stainless water heater we use to bottle, but it creates hot spots and niter if I just use it to reheat. Its like a coffee urn without the percolating guts, just a flat round element on bottom. last year we were drawing off the evap just before syrup, bringing it home ( 4 miles away, not set up yet for finishing in the sugarhouse) finishing on gas in the pan, then trying to filter hot in a cone filter directly into the urn and bottle before it got cool. not too smooth and burned fingers trying to filter it quickly. also late nights for my helper wife.
I am not going to have it all in the shack this year either, maybe next year.
would this work - draw off and finish the same, use flat filters and steam pan to filter and let it sit, not worry about bottling yet. I also have two large stainless soup pots, one will nestle inside the other( 4 and 3 gal). I'm thinking put water into the outside pot and heat the finished, filtered syrup back to 190, then directly into the (water preheated) urn for bottling. Hopefully this would prevent more niter. If I could figure a way to pipe the syrup out the bottom and add a thermometer plug, I'd build these into a water jacket bottler.
actually the more I think about it I could do it all in the shack since the reheating is gas, but if its cooled and reheated there's really no rush, right? does the step process sound like it would work?
I am not going to have it all in the shack this year either, maybe next year.
would this work - draw off and finish the same, use flat filters and steam pan to filter and let it sit, not worry about bottling yet. I also have two large stainless soup pots, one will nestle inside the other( 4 and 3 gal). I'm thinking put water into the outside pot and heat the finished, filtered syrup back to 190, then directly into the (water preheated) urn for bottling. Hopefully this would prevent more niter. If I could figure a way to pipe the syrup out the bottom and add a thermometer plug, I'd build these into a water jacket bottler.
actually the more I think about it I could do it all in the shack since the reheating is gas, but if its cooled and reheated there's really no rush, right? does the step process sound like it would work?