In between boils

[Maplewalnut]

What is the consensus to do with a flat pan model in between boils? Do you leave it full of sap and start it back up or do you empty it completely clean up some niter and re-fill prior to the next boil? I guess you couldn't leave it full for too long depending on the weather. It may be three or even four days between boils.

[Flatfoot95]

I assume that this is a reverse flow pan? If so I would flood the pans for the night and simply reverse the flow the nextday. I would usually only drain the pans once during the season to clean niter. I never had any problems. Some people I know don't drain the pans once during season. If it was left emty for days on end I would start a very small fire in the firebox once a day just enough to take the frost off the concentrate in the pans.

[ontario guy]

You have to make sure your sap is boiled first or it won't keep for days. if you put fresh sap in the pan, make sure you boil it for a while first you will be at a higher sugar content and any bacteria that was in there is no longer alive.

I boil every day even if i only collect 20 gallons of sap, i have had sap spoil in barrels in the past before i started doing it this way...

Looks like another week or two before we boil here.

Mark

[ennismaple]

It really depends on how you're set up. Our sugarhouse is not heated so if we get a cold spell mid-season we have to boil the evaporator out or else the pans will freeze up and bust the seems. If it's only cold for a day or so we'll light a smudge under the pans to keep them from freezing. Every time you do this your sap/syrup darkens a bit so we try to do it as little as possible.

As for cleaning - we drain and clean our pans after we've made about 100 gallons of syrup. After that the colour starts to darken and there's so much crud in the flues that you don't get good heat transfer. This also allows us to scrape the sugar sand off of the finishing pan. If we let it build up the automatic runoff can get plugged with flakes that come loose.