Question on ice in sap buckets

[deacm]

Typically when I get ice in my buckets I just throw it out and am thankful that that's some water I don't have to waste firewood on. But with the surprise run of sap I got on Tuesday (full buckets and I didn't even notice) and then the next two days of 16º I had HUGE blocks of ice in each bucket, such that there was only about a pint of sap (at 6% sugar!) in each bucket. Question is this...........that seems like an awful LOT of frozen water/sap to not try and thaw and use. Is that block of ice really just all water? If not, how much sap is trapped in there still. Each block of ice is about 1-2 1/2 gallons of ice. It's a wonder that it didn't split all my buckets. Thank you.

[Run Forest Run!]

There is still a lot of sugar locked up in blocks of ice that large. When that happens to me I put those big blocks in a separate pail. I test the melting sap with my refractometer and keep adding that sap to the boiling pot until the sugar content reads less than 1%. I find that once the blocks start to look slushy and pitted with holes that most of the really good sugar is gone.

[deacm]

GREAT! Thanks. I'd never had blocks that big before so that's a really good approach

[johnpma]

I save the ice in a separate tote and drop it I'm my totes on warm days like ice cubes to preserve the sap

[Person25]

i separate them, and use my preheater to melt them a few at a time

[Mille705]

I through out ice all the time when it is just a skim on the top of the pails. I would not through out that ice however, still lots of sugar in it. I use them like ice cubes on warm days as mentioned earlier.