2x6 pan with a cold forecast question

[Mille705]

We have a 2x6 pan with drop flues in the back. We tapped and boiled this weekend and it looks like a day or two this week. However then they are talking of several cold days with single digit nights. How would you leave your pan? Drain it completing? Let the sugar equalize to lower freezing point? Place space heater in the fire box at night to keep thawed? Thanks for any input.

[vtwoody]

In similar situation in past, I've put something over the pan and a couple of worklights in firebox with 100 watt bulbs...kept pans safe despite a skim of ice on top....or you could find something to pump it out into storage and not worry.

[BAP]

As long as your sap has been boiled and concentrated down some, you will be fine. The sap may get slushy but it won't freeze hard enough to damage the flues.

[DaveB]

I've done the 100 watt bulb trick but I think as BAP said, if it's semi-concentrated, it will be slushy but not frozen solid.

To give an example, last weekend when it was -17° I had to get some syrup packed but it was in 5 gallon containers that were in my sugarhouse. I brought them inside and let them warm up for 4 or 5 hours but they were still caked with ice. I poured them into my canning unit and measured the temperature. The syrup was 23° but it was still a liquid.

One of the problems I've had though is my feed tank and feed line. One really cold morning I could fire up the evaporator but I couldn't get sap out of my feed tank because my 1" line had frozen. I think I wound up taking all the piping apart, removing the frozen sap, including in the fitting connecting the pipe to my tank. I think sap gushed out and I had to hurry to get the pipe back on.

[billyinvt]

Right. High enough sugar and it shouldn't be a big deal. I close the valve at the feed tank and drain the line into the float box during shut down to avoid it freezing up. I had to use a hair dryer the last time it froze up.

[Daveg]

i put a 60 watt cfl in my drop flue arch and closed the fire box doors. I put another bulb next to the heading tank fittings with a towel over it.

[Mille705]

Right. High enough sugar and it shouldn't be a big deal. I close the valve at the feed tank and drain the line into the float box during shut down to avoid it freezing up. I had to use a hair dryer the last time it froze up.

So the $3000 question is how much sugar do you need? Good color that is about ready to pull and allow it to equalize!

[Russell Lampron]

I have never worried about it with my raised flue and last season it sat frozen for 3 weeks with temps well below zero on several of those nights. I have never had any damage because of it. I have heard of drop flue pans being damaged because of freeze ups though so you might want to drain it.

[maple flats]

In my early years I worried and sometimes lit a small fire. Then after reading all those who don't do anything special, I started just leaving it. I do close the head tank valve (butterfly valve) and drain the feed line. then it just sets. lots of slush will form on top but nothing will freeze solid. I have gotten ice on the cold sap box, but I remove the float and no damage is done.

[flhr10]

I put a very small electric heater in firebox and from pans down so the crossover tube and draw off tube are half full. What I dran off, I put in a bucket and set it in flue pan and freezing isn't a issue.

[wnybassman]

Last week when we had temps to -15 to -20 I put a heat lamp (the red kind used for chicks) in the firebox. With a raised flue I didn't know if I really needed to or not, but I put it in there anyway.