5 gallon buckets and color

[Friggs]

Hello all,

Been using 5 gallon buckets at the tree to collect sap and i have white, yellow and reddish color 5gal. buckets. I was wondering which colors would be better regarding heating up in the sun or spoiling in the sun. Anyone have any issues regarding this matter.

Friggs

[smokeyamber]

White.... buried in snow preferably :lol:

[billyinvt]

White is good for the reason that you can more easily see the clarity of your sap too.

[Cedar Eater]

White is more likely to be rated as food safe. I don't think red or yellow can be. White also reflects more solar radiation (sunlight), so the contents will stay cooler.

[Tapline]

Cedar eater TSC sells red food grade buckets.

[Friggs]

I got all my yellow buckets from a local bakery which contained margarine. Reds buckets contained concentrated grapes for wine making and some of the whites also wine making.

[saphound]

Food grade buckets come in many colors. What you want to see ...look on the bottom.. is a 2 inside the triangle and the letters HDPE (High Density Polyethylene), under the triangle. The lids should be marked like that also. There are other possible food grade numbers and letters, but 2 is best.
http://www.wikihow.com/Identify-Food-Grade-Buckets

[Cedar Eater]

Not every bucket with a 2 HDPE is food grade. Look for the wineglass. But the other 2 HDPE buckets will be food safe if they are well cleaned.

[saphound]

Hey Cedar... I just posted about this in a related thread. Everything I can find about HDPE buckets says they are all food grade, with or without the cup and fork symbol. If you can post a link showing otherwise I'd be interested in reading it, as would others, I'm sure. How's your season going?

[Cedar Eater]

Hey Cedar... I just posted about this in a related thread. Everything I can find about HDPE buckets says they are all food grade, with or without the cup and fork symbol. If you can post a link showing otherwise I'd be interested in reading it, as would others, I'm sure. How's your season going?

My season is going great. I'm almost half way to my goal.

I am only combining bits and pieces of what I've read and heard from people, so I don't have links. What I have heard about 2 HDPE buckets and barrels is this. If they are being produced for food they will use a non-toxic mold release agent and they will stamp the wineglass and/or knife and fork symbols into the plastic to indicate that they don't need to be washed when they arrive at the food processor. They are ready for food to be added. The mold release agent (basically an oil) is sprayed on the mold before the plastic is injected into it. A tiny amount can get on the inside of the vessel and it won't necessarily get cleaned out because that adds an unnecessary step to the manufacturing process. If the containers are not being produced specifically for food or beverage, the mold release agent can be a cheaper oil that you wouldn't want to consume and it needs to be thoroughly washed out of the container before you can consider it to be food safe. In other words, the container didn't leave the factory ready for food use so they couldn't stamp it as food grade, but you can make it food safe.

I have several examples of non-food-grade buckets and barrels that you might not think of as being capable of being made food safe. In the dairy industry, they ship buckets and barrels of sanitizers and cleansers in 2 HDPE. Bleach, KOH, and phosphoric acid solutions are used to clean and sanitize the milking equipment. Those containers don't need to be food grade, and you certainly wouldn't mix their contents into your syrup, but when you rinse them out with vinegar or baking soda solutions, they become food safe, because the contents don't soak into the HDPE in quantities that will become unsafe when the sap is concentrated.

Second example. Pelletized or powderized components for making things like vinyl and PVC come in drums made of 2 HDPE. If you get one of these drums that hasn't been washed, it will have a horrible chemical plastic smell and you will think it is crazy to use it for sap. If you look at the MSDS for the contents it will have ingredients like chlorinated polyolefin, epoxidized oil, and chlorobenzene that just scream "do not consume" at you. But the MSDS says that the contents are not toxic if ingested. If you scrub the drums with a white vinegar solution that gets the oils out. Then rinse them with baking soda solution and then again with just water and let them air out for a day, just to be sure. The smell goes completely away and there is nothing left to concentrate down. I know this because I have made syrup from sap stored in them. People can't detect any "plastic" taste and in blind taste tests with batches from other sources, there is no detectable difference.

Another example is the pink antifreeze used for winterizing RVs. It's just ethanol and water mixed with dye and something you wouldn't want to drink, like syrup of ipecac, but you can make the containers food safe more easily than you can clean the plumbing in the RV. You just rinse it out with water. Even the jugs for blue antifreeze windshield washer solution, which contains methanol, can be rinsed so thoroughly that they are food safe.

But if you think you can just buy new HDPE buckets and barrels and put sap directly into them when they aren't stamped as food grade, from what I have heard, that is not safe. The mold release agent may not have been pure enough because it legally didn't have to be.

[saphound]

Well that makes sense. Of course any new container should be washed thoroughly before use even if it has the cup and fork symbol. It's odd there doesn't seem to be any clear cut information on why many plastic containers that come with food or beverage already in them.. milk, ketchup, peanut butter, juice, etc. don't have the food safe symbol on them. I bought a dozen or so buckets from Walmart last year. The paper label says food and beverage safe but there is no cup and fork on them. I have a couple pickle buckets from a local deli that don't have the cup and fork. They are marked with a 5 and PP. There are some on here using 100 or more buckets for sap collecting..I'd be willing to bet most don't have the cup and fork symbol. I've yet to see one that does, but I'm sure you could buy them somewhere..probably cost a lot more tho.

[Conococheague]

How about cat litter buckets? I haven't looked to see what number or symbol is on them but I'm fairly certain that they are HDPE. Would the existence of PBA's be an issue? It came to light a few years ago with regard to bottled water but the water can be in those bottles a longer than sap before it is consumed.

[saphound]

No worries about PBA's with 2 HDPE. Water bottles are a different plastic..1 PETE (Polyethylene Terephthalate). They should be used once and recycled. You'll have to see what marking is on your cat litter buckets to know for sure.

[eustis22]

No on the cat litter buckets. They are not food grade and cat litter contains chemicals. Both lowes and home despot sell buckets marked AS Food Grade. If you cannot get them from a bakery or other food producer get those. the 2 HDPE is not indicative of food gradehoodness, merely type and grade of plastic.

[Cedar Eater]

No on the cat litter buckets. They are not food grade and cat litter contains chemicals. Both lowes and home despot sell buckets marked AS Food Grade. If you cannot get them from a bakery or other food producer get those. the 2 HDPE is not indicative of food gradehoodness, merely type and grade of plastic.

Do these "chemicals" kill cats when they lick their fur after getting cat litter on it? "Chemicals" is a scary word that doesn't necessarily mean anything. What matters is whether the chemicals are toxic and whether they can't be sufficiently washed out to make the containers safe for short term storage of sap. I wouldn't drink from a container that once carried insecticide or weed killer unless I was in a survival situation, but I'm pretty sure that they don't put insecticide or weed killer in cat litter.

[Cedar Eater]

It's odd there doesn't seem to be any clear cut information on why many plastic containers that come with food or beverage already in them.. milk, ketchup, peanut butter, juice, etc. don't have the food safe symbol on them.

It makes sense that these containers wouldn't have the food grade symbols on them if the food processor didn't want to pay the extra for food grade containers and instead washed the containers to make them food safe. That's one of the things that makes this "mold release agent" reason for the difference plausible. Do plastic syrup bottles that come boxed from the factory have to be washed before syrup is added? If they had the food grade symbol on them, I would say no. If they didn't?

[mellondome]

Would you drink from a cat litter bucket? Now would you drink water that was in said bucket that was then concentrated 42 to 1? It is the concentration of what is residual in the plastic that you want to avoid. And you can't fully clean plastic.
Let's think about our actions.... we are making a food product that is highly concentrated and on the small scale, feeding it to our loved ones. Would you use a cat litter bucket to serve drinks to your party guests out of like a punch bowl?

[saphound]

One thing about HDPE plastic that I've read over and over while researching this subject is that it doesn't absorb what has been in it...not even solvents. A good washing with hot soapy water and thorough rinsing and it's no different than the buckets sold at Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, etc. They do not have the cup and fork symbol marking them as food grade, only the 2 and HDPE. I'd drink water from just about any bucket marked HDPE after I washed it good. These days it seems you have to worry more about the water than the container it's in. I do draw the line at used gas cans, motor oil, hydraulic oil, tranny oil buckets and the like. Kitty litter doesn't bother me as long as its marked 2HDPE...well..as long as there was never *used* kitty litter in it, ha. But to each their own.

[Cedar Eater]

Would you drink from a cat litter bucket? Now would you drink water that was in said bucket that was then concentrated 42 to 1? It is the concentration of what is residual in the plastic that you want to avoid. And you can't fully clean plastic.
Let's think about our actions.... we are making a food product that is highly concentrated and on the small scale, feeding it to our loved ones. Would you use a cat litter bucket to serve drinks to your party guests out of like a punch bowl?

If the bucket was made from HDPE and washed well and contained no residual odor and the MSDS for the contents indicated they were non-toxic when ingested and when a test boil produced no hint of off taste and when the alternatives are more expensive or less desirable for some other reason, I would use that bucket to gather sap. Wouldn't you?

[Cedar Eater]

Kitty litter doesn't bother me as long as its marked 2HDPE...well..as long as there was never *used* kitty litter in it, ha. But to each their own.

It's good to have standards. I wouldn't use containers that had been used for weed killer or bug killer or radioactive waste.