How long is sap good in pans?

[CampHamp]

It'll be about a week between boils, I expect.

I keep a small heater in my shack at about 35 degrees so the sap won't freeze and bend my flue pan.

The saps been boiled so I guess it would last longer than fresh sap.

How long will this sap last before I should dump it?

What do people do to when there are long periods between runs?

I was thinking about emptying the flue pan back into my outside head tank.

[Asthepotthickens]

I would drain it and freeze ituntil next the sap starts to flow again

[Big_Eddy]

Is the delay due to freezing temperatures or your availability? Frozen sap will keep for a long time.

If due to cold weather, let it freeze in place or drain and let it freeze in a pail until it warms up. Don't add it back to your tank - keep it separate and add it back to the evaporator first.

If it's due to your availability and it will be warm in the shack, then the partially boiled sap is going to need to be finished off or drained and kept cold / frozen.

[PerryW]

I run my pans down to less than 1 inch above the flues and let it freeze solid. Been doing it that way for 25 years and ain't busted a pan yet. It's a frozen block right now.

[CampHamp]

Big_Eddy and PerryW - I hear you saying it is OK to let it freeze right in the flue pan. It's my first year with this pan and it would be a huge loss if I busted this thing. If I had "V" shaped flues, then I'd do it, but we've all read the horrible problems others have had with frozen sap (where pans would leak or bend)...


Is the delay due to freezing temperatures or your availability?
I am delayed due to freezing temps and no running sap.

My question is really, for those that heat their shacks (or put a light bulb under their pan) - how long can we do this before it goes bad? I would think it would last longer than raw sap since I've boiled the bacteria out of it, but I don't want to find out I was wrong by being lazy!

So here's what I did today:
I cleaned my outside head tank, filtered the sap as I dumped the sap from the pan and put it into the tank. Cleaned both pans. I will fill my evaporator with this concentrated sap before pumping new sap into my head tank. For next year, I need to get more food-grade buckets so I can empty my evaporator anytime I want...

[West Mountain Maple]

I don't have an answer for you on how long it's good for not frozen, but i can tell you i have several hours into repairing the flue drain on my pan that blew apart from freezing, and replaced the brass ball valve drain that blew right out the side of the valve body, put a stainless valve on now. My pans have been sitting sweet for 5 days, not looking like any sap soon, today drained and filtered the flue pan, about 50 gals(3.5x10), put plugs in and ran it with water in in while i finished up in the syrup pans, got it just right as the fire died and bottled 12 gals of medium from all the sweet. I'll start fresh with what i suspect will be buddy sap when it runs NEXT monday!

[PerryW]

I'm not necessarily condone letting your pans freeze, it's just the way I do it. I guess it kind of happened by accident back in 1990 when temps dropped to 20 below. My sugarhouse doesn't really hold the heat; you can pretty much throw a cat through the cracks, so a light bulb wouldn't prevent freezing. I didn't want to hassle with 80-100 gallons of partially boiled sap to drain and keep above freezing so I let her freeze and never looked back.

To answer your question, I would just keep it warm enough to prevent it freezing solid. If there even a skim of ice, or a few frozen areas, I bet the sap would keep for a couple weeks.

[Big_Eddy]

Mine is a frozen lump right now too. If I'd known it was going to be so long (12 days now and at least 2-3 more cold) between boils I would have siphoned out into a stainless pail, but I had expected to be boiling again in a few days. I prefer not to let mine freeze but it has done a few times so far without issue.

The valves tend to be the highest risk area. Sap freezes from the ends and traps liquid in the valve body that then has no-where to expand. Open is lower risk than closed, but still a concern.

When I restart - I have to remember that frozen plug between the sap and syrup pan. I've had a few exciting times when the front pan is close to burning but the valve is still plugged.

I keep an electric heat gun in my sugar shack specificlaly to thaw valves

[CampHamp]

The valves tend to be the highest risk area.

I read somewhere on here that you can drill a hole on one side of the ball valve (not sure if that is the liquid-side or air-side when closed) and that will prevent water from being trapped in there. I'm tempted.

[DrTimPerkins]

How long will this sap last before I should dump it?

There are really three concerns:

1. Sweet turns ropey -- not a lot of chance of that if the temperature is cold enough. Better to let your sugarhouse freeze to prevent that. If above freezing, fire up and boil briefly (10 minutes) every couple of days to kill anything that might start growing. Watch the liquid level if you do this though.

2. Freezing damages flues -- not a problem with welded pans. Not typically a problem with soldered pans either, especially if you only leave just a little in the pans. More typically (as someone pointed out) it is the valves that break.

3. Lead -- not a problem if your rig is lead-free. If it is constructed with lead solder, the shortest contact time possible is best. In that case, if you aren't boiling for a few days, after the rig has cooled, drain off all (or most) of the sweet into lead-free containers until you boil the next time. Sweet sitting in a lead-soldered evaporator (even if cold) for a week will build up a considerable amount of lead.

[Shawn]

Drained our front pan the last day we boiled a week ago now and will dump it back into the front pan when we fire up again which I HOPE is this weekend.:cool:

[Big_Eddy]

I read somewhere on here that you can drill a hole on one side of the ball valve (not sure if that is the liquid-side or air-side when closed) and that will prevent water from being trapped in there. I'm tempted.

You drill a hole on the air-side when closed so that the liquid in the ball will drain out. Otherwise liquid is trapped in the closed valve and has no-where to expand.
However - this doesn't do anything for the valves between pans or between the evaporator and float box, as there is no air-side on those.

Another advantage of the drilled ball is that once you warm the valve slightly to be able to turn it and open it, there is no plug of ice in the middle of the valve still blocking flow.

[sg5054]

Last week when we had the rain storm it hit 50F at my house. I scrambled and boiled all the sap I had . I now have 10 gallons that I boiled to 207F. I put it into 2 buckets and left it out in the shack. They have been sitting since last Thursday with a layer of slush on the top. I just poured some back into the pan and Dad will be there shortly to start a fire so we can finish it this afternoon. Looks really nice. Can't wait to see what it turns into. Now if it would only warm up enough to thaw my sap tank...

[sg5054]

Well It turned into 4 gals. We finished it in the pan and just completed the canning. Looks great and very tasty.

[CampHamp]

That's a great haul of syrup, sg5054. Enjoy!

[PerryW]

You drill a hole on the air-side when closed so that the liquid in the ball will drain out. Otherwise liquid is trapped in the closed valve and has no-where to expand.
However - this doesn't do anything for the valves between pans or between the evaporator and float box, as there is no air-side on those.

Another advantage of the drilled ball is that once you warm the valve slightly to be able to turn it and open it, there is no plug of ice in the middle of the valve still blocking flow.

Would using Gate Valves solve this problem?

[802maple]

Perryw, I would only use gate valves and yes it will solve the problem.

[sg5054]

That's a great haul of syrup, sg5054. Enjoy!

It certainly was. Not bad a return after starting with about 9 gallons. I'm still struggling with the whole filter process though. The niter was dark and thick. I wonder if it was amplified by the process of partially finishing, letting it sit and then finishing almost a week later. I used a wool filter and 5 pre-filters and still ended up with it being a bit cloudy. I filtered straight out of the pan.

[PerryW]

Perryw, I would only use gate valves and yes it will solve the problem.

Yes, My 3x10 does have gate valves. Maybe that's why I haven't ever had a problem letting it freeze solid.

[CampHamp]

I had one cloudy batch this year. I had filtered on the draw off but then boiled down for 30 min to finish and went straight into bottles. So, if you bring to a boil, stop and boil again you create more niter than if you boil just once. That seems strange to me... if I stop and start 10 times and filtered in between each boil, I wonder if I'd pull out the same amount of niter each time.

I bet that keeping syrup at constant, high temps is clarifying the syrup and drawing out the niter into large particles which filter out, but if you only boil for a brief time (or re-boil for only a brief time) then you don't get large particles so some cloudiness will pass through the filter. I don't have enough experience to confirm this, though.

[CampHamp]

I have butterfly valves on the sanitary pipes between the pans and ball valves at the draw-offs. The butterfly valves look serious, expensive and fancy, but they both started to drip half-way into the season. I assume that some crud must form that affects the seal over time. I just cleaned them with this last pan cleaning and hope they seal again. My finishing pan had extra depth after sitting idle for a few days because of these drips.