sugaringcrazy
04-15-2015, 07:37 AM
So, it looks like the last hard freeze is tonight here in central VT. I have been wanting to hold on until the bitter end as I feel like I have pulled taps too early in years past. Anyways, two nights ago when I finished up boiling I was making a really tasty grade c syrup. The sap had endured a 70 degree day and was pretty cloudy to say the least. Now it's been in my evaporator and it was in the 60s yesterday. I can imagine that bacteria numbers have been multiplying. So my question is, would y'all dump what I had in the pans and start over with whatever comes in today (after a light freeze last night) and tomorrow? I did draw off and finish on the stove two gallons of the sweetest stuff. It's still hard to throw out sweet stuff that's been boiled... But I'd like to finish with a good final batch!
And the last bit is, I definitely had scorched the pans a little bit with too much niter build up. With a new rig from Smokey Lake this year, I was not expecting so much niter, and I went too far. I'm scrubbing the pans this morning. So the stuff in the syrup pan was exposed to this "burning" even though the syrup coming out was tasting great! So that's another variable in deciding whether to dump the sweet stuff and start fresh. Thoughts?
And the last bit is, I definitely had scorched the pans a little bit with too much niter build up. With a new rig from Smokey Lake this year, I was not expecting so much niter, and I went too far. I'm scrubbing the pans this morning. So the stuff in the syrup pan was exposed to this "burning" even though the syrup coming out was tasting great! So that's another variable in deciding whether to dump the sweet stuff and start fresh. Thoughts?