4 x 5 pan to big?

[feathercast]

After a lot of reading I think I may have jumped the gun buying a 4 x 5 pan last weekend. I only have 30 taps, so is it to small? I only paid $150 for it, it's made of stainless & English Tin. I'm thinking I may need to downsize this year.

[optionguru]

Yup, too big send it to me ASAP :) You won't have to boil for very long with that much surface area. Curious how the stainless and tin mix together, I've never seen that.

[Sugarmaker]

30 good taps could produce 60 gallons of syrup or more per run. I don't think your pan is to big but you will have to watch that you don't run out of sap as it boils down. Your description of the pan makes me wonder about the construction. Picture would be helpful. Usually English tin and stainless are not in the same pan??
Are you going with a block arch?
Regards,
Chris

[feathercast]

Its all soldered together from what I can tell. I'm still trying to figure out if I want to go with a temporary block arch or build a steel/firebrick arch. Just waiting to see what the weather brings in the next few days. I hope to get my shack built & put it inside. I would rather just trade it for a 2x4 or close to that with the arch.

[maple flats]

What makes you think there is SS in it? My "guess" is that it is all English tin, which looks like SS, but the SS looking shine is just the tin coating. As far as size, you may want to find more taps. With English tin the pan will be soldered with lead solder. You'll be OK as long as you don't clean the solder to a shine, leave it dull.

[feathercast]

You can see a difference in parts of it, but I haven't put a magnet to it. The Amish guy it came from told me it was ss. Amish don't lie right...

[Big_Eddy]

Get a lead test kit and test it to be sure.

For 30 trees, it's going to take several days sap collection before you have enough sap to start and boil, and even more before you can draw off syrup. Invest now in some food safe sap storage that you can keep cool and shaded.

[morningstarfarm]

To me for 60 taps it is way too big...while the surface area is good the size of the fire and the amount of wood you are going to burn is going to be huge...

[SevenCreeksSap]

I could see setting that up with a water tank to chase and ladle sap over, or even block off channels and sap in a couple, water in a couple. Just be a trick doing it all right, getting a setup and flow.

For 150 bucks I'd keep it and hang on the wall.seems to be some question on the makeup and food safety. maybe use it long enough to make enough to buy a new pan. Thats a cool looking piece of history.