Buckets cleaning

[poulin]

Hi all,

I am wondering if members could share their buckets cleaning technique. I must admit it is not the best part for me. Any best practices would be highly appreciated.

Thanks everyone

[Jolly Acres Farm]

I clean them the same as washing my dishes, Dawn dish soap and a cap full of bleach in hot water. Wash and rinse well then dry. My wife is ever so happy when the bucket brigade comes through her kitchen.......:lol:

[SeanD]

I start with a big tote with soap and water. I just use the smallest amount of soap to begin to see bubbles. Sometimes I skip the soap and just scrub with water if the buckets aren't too bad. Soap is really hard to rinse off, so go easy on it.

Next, each bucket goes into a 20:1 bleach solution in a barrel. I can usually fit 2-3 buckets in the barrel, so once I can't fit another bucket in, I start moving them through three more barrels of just water for a rinse. So, any given bucket is in the sanitizer for 30 seconds to 2 minutes or so. After the rinse, I let them air dry.

I do this on the first nice day after the season - sometimes in April, often in the summer. The day the buckets come off the tree, I give them a quick water scrub just to get anything nasty and any sugar still in there. It makes the big wash day a lot easier.

[Big_Eddy]

I do similar. I set up two totes side by side. Half fill the first with water with soap and some bleach, leave the hose in the other at a trickle for the rinse. I have a bucket brush chucked into my cordless drill. Dip a bucket in the soapy water, insert the brush, give a good scrub, dump, inspect, repeat if needed, then into the rinse tote. Spin to rinse then upside down on the grass. Next.

I line them up in stacks of 10 or so on the "dirty" side and every time I get to the bottom of a stack I collect up the rinsed ones and line them up further away to dry.

Rubber boots, neoprene gloves, but I still get soaked.

Goes faster with a helper to take away the rinsed ones but they always seem to make themselves scarce.

[buckeye gold]

I have a big utility sink in my basement and start with a light scrub out of crud then I make up a 20:1 chlorine solution and a few drops of dawn dish soap in a bucket and dip a cup or two in each bucket scrub with a scrub pad in the sink and rinse with full hot water. I then stack them upside down and build bucket pyramids to let dry. My wood stove is in my basement and I stoke it up until it's about 90 degrees down there (when I'm done) and they are dry in a couple hours. Lids I do in the sink and mix it 1/3 full with the soap and chlorine mix then fill it with lids to scrub and rinse with the sink hose. I hate lids, yes I hate washing lids I doooo:mad: I use a tooth brush for all nooks. That is why I have went to more bags, because bags just go in the garbage and PVC holders are easy....put them in the dishwasher and Bingo your done!

[tuolumne]

At the beginning of sap season, we wash them like dishes in the large laundry sink using a bit of dish soap and a scotch-bright type pad. They dry in front of the wood stove in giant bucket pyramids. It takes about a day to cycle 420 buckets through. The floor is always a lot cleaner when we're done. At the end of the season they get rinsed with a hose in the yard and dried in pyramids on pallets. From there they wait through the summer in the basement, 20 per stack.

[poulin]

Interesting to read, no miracle so far, i do kind of a mix of all that too: not the funniest part of the season ....

[Jebediah]

When we're done in the spring, briefly hose out each bucket, then dip buckets in tub of bleach diluted ~1:10. Remove and let stand, wet, for about 15 minutes. Then rinse with water (hose), stack upside down pyramids in garage to dry (a day or two), then stack for storing in basement. At the start of next year, get them out and use directly. These are white plastic buckets. This has worked well for us.

[mapleguy]

I wash mine at the beginning of the season with a hot water pressure washer. no soaps or additives. Have never had a problem. I do question however the use of any kind of soap.

[Spanielslovesappin]

We wash right at the end of the season to get the nasty off them before it turns into a biological disaster. We just use bleach and water with not to much bleach... Fed into one end of a milk tank for a soak and then scrub them as we pull then out the other end. Build the bucket pyramid on a breezy sunny day. once fully dry, put them up till next year... no pre season wash... never had any issues... i assume that any sugars that may or may not remain is digested during the summer as the buckets get cooked under the eaves of the Sugar house. they always are clean and fresh in the spring. 10000 ways to skin this cat!

[Michael Greer]

I found an old milk-house sink, made for washing old style milk cans. It's the best for washing both 5 gal. pails and metal sap buckets...wash in one, rinse in the other and keep the rinse water clean. I stack them in pyramids out in the sun and breeze for a day or so, then nest them in stacks that will fit into a garbage bag. Safe and dry, they are tied shut an stacked in the loft above the sugarhouse. When the season starts, everything is clean.