Steel for a Sap Pan--Bad Idea?

[Bruce L]

I have a twelve year old boy on my bus who is interested in getting into Sugarmaking. Last year he boiled on a turkey fryer,this year he found a sap pan in the local classifieds for $100.00 I took a look at the pan today, and it is steel,not stainless steel or tin. Would it be safe for him to make syrup with this? I recommended he have his neighbor weld dividers in it,as it would be hard to keep the sap from mixing when he would start drawing off,the pan looks to be about 30" X 48"

[psparr]

Mild steel will be fine, and will actually boil better than stainless.

[barnbc76]

Wow that will be a big jump for him going to something that big from a turkey fryer, does he have help I am assuming? He'd need like 30 or 40 trees to just start I think.

[Bruce L]

Yes actually he said that he is planning on 40 buckets this year

[Robert K]

That is bringing back memories!!!
If he needs a few buckets, let me know. Always like encouraging the next generation.

[Bucket Head]

The first pan we had fabricated was steel. It was 1/8" thick too! It worked- it boiled. Used it for years.

[Ian MacMillan]

Did you guys ever coat the steel? I made a set of pans last year using mild steel and the syrup took on a rusty taste. Ended up having to dump it

Ian MacMillan
Wakefield, NH

[smokeyamber]

After cleaning the steel pans I heated them up a bit ( left them in the sun ) and then I coated them with mineral oil to prevent rust. I ran mine for only two years until I moved to stainless. My issue was that my seams were not clean enough and I got that rusty taste. If you can keep em clean and oiled that likely would not happen. My new stainless pan has paid for itself in two seasons so no looking back.

[Sugarmaker]

Always good to get young folks involved! If you can get stainless, it would be prefered. But the steel will work.
let us know how he is doing.
Regards,
Chris

[Bruce L]

His Mother tells me he is just finishing up his new arch out of an oil drum I believe, gave him the grates from our previous evaporator, he really appreciated them more than a buyer that was trying to get the grates for next to nothing would have appreciated them

[stieler]

I run a steel pan on my drum evaporator. Cleaned it good when I first built it, boiled some water off, then immediately did some sap to syrup. I read here not to clean pans before you put them away for summer. The natural sugars of the syrup protect from rust. Just put them in storage and give them a light clean when you get them out next year. Soot on bottom keeps the outside from becoming all rusty. I flip the pan upside down and it's stays outside on the evaporator until next boil. Always great tasting syrup. On my 4th year with the same pan.

[BCPP]

We have a steel pan of about those dimensions that we use over a steel grate on a fire to demonstrate syrup production in Victorian times. It has no dividers. Most of the time it's just boiling for demo purposes but in past years I have made a batch or two per season. It's just a batch process, fill it with about 60l sap at 9 and then pour off 1.5l syrup at 3! Getting the syrup out of a 100lb hot steel pan is quite challenging!

We never do anything to clean the pan other than wash with water and store inside. Rust has not been an issue.

This year we added a mini pro evaporator to our demonstrations and I have to say it's a lot easier to open a valve every so often to draw off the syrup but cleaning the ss divided pans takes a lot more effort!