straight or mixed

[sawyer40]

I going to boil my pans out with vinegar I'm assuming you mix it with water. Otherwise I would need 50 gallons of it to cover the bottom of the pans on my 3x10. So how should I mix it ? I guess I should include that my flue pan is a drop flue pan and takes a lot of liquid to get to a safe leval. I'm still new to this so any help is appreciated. I just got my oil burner fired up this morning to see how it worked. I haven't put the pans on the arch yet.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

http://www.mapletrader.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1124&highlight=gal+vinegar

[Pete33Vt]

When I did my 40x12 with vinager, I ended up using 5 gals. I dumped 4 in the back pan a 1 in the front. I brought the water level just about up to where I boil at. I don't think you can get to much vinager in will just be harder on your eyes. The vinager worked great for me.

Pete

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I used 4 gallon in my 2x8 when I cleaned it last spring and I ran the water level up to 8 to 10 inches to get all the sugar sand off of the dividers and sides. I like it a lot better as you don't have to worry about skin contact or breathing the fumes and it works great. I just simmered mine for about an hour and then let set for a while and it does most of the cleaning itself with a little scrubbing. :D I only let mine set an hour or two, should have let it set all day or overnight. :D

[maple flats]

I used 12 gal in my 2x6 last year and then brought the level up to about 3" with water last year. It worked great. I used a pot scrubber brush with a handle to swab up above the liquid level, I heated it to about 105-110 degrees F and let it set for about an hour, brushed everything and then opened the supply valve whit potable water in the feed tank and opened the draw off full. The first to come off went into the canner to clean that, and then was drawn off the canner, refreshed and did this about 3 or 4 times. Then I drew off as needed to use for cleaning the buckets and other equipment, 1 wash tub and 1 rinse tub. As the wash began to look a little dirty, rinse became wash and wash was dumped, splash rinsed and refilled from the evap again. When I was doing this part I had the water as hot as was comfortable to wash things up. When washing was done I let the fire burn out and rinsed several more times still feeding from the feed tank. Then I drained the pans with feed tank valve closed and stacked the pans crossways on the arch. At this point I was ready to wash tubing. For this I filled my sap tank I haul sap in with water and peroxide and proceeded to wash the tubing.