Syrup slimy and goey in the evaporator

[markct]

I have a serious problem I believe, two days ago I boiled and it went just fine, we had a 70 degree day yesterday and it appears my sweet spoiled in the pans never had this happen even when warm for a good while, any idea why?

[Sugarmaker]

There is such a thing as ropey syrup! I have seen a little bit of it once or twice. Usually late season sap problem.
Regards,
Chris

[markct]

I had heard of it happening, and always overfill the pans and make sure it's good and boiled, I have had sap sit late season for days and never did this, I'm baffled what went wrong

[Sugarmaker]

I don't think you did anything wrong. Its in the sap from the trees. Out of your control. The problem with this stuff is doing something with it! Bulk buyers may take it?? Keep it separate for the other syrup.
Regards,
Chris

[DrTimPerkins]

Dump any sap/sweet that is ropey and then CLEAN everything that came in contact with the sap and syrup extremely well. If you try to boil it you risk burning your pans (its like boiling jello). The microbe that causes this is somewhat difficult to get rid of, but a good cleaning wit HOT water and a little bleach (then copious rinsing) should do it.

[SeanD]

Sorry this happened to you. I had this happen a few years ago. It was the worst. Now, I'm hyper sensitive to it happening again. The advice given is the only way out. You have to dump and clean and sanitize. That crap will hide down in the flues and in the drain. Don't forget the float box, too.

I think my culprit was my emergency sap bucket. It sat in the warm sugar house during the boil then I poured it in when I flooded the pans at the end. I think the pans had already cooled too much and didn't kill anything I dumped in.

Now I flood while everything is still hot and boiling. I also will do a maintenance boil on days I'm not boiling. I'll light a small fire just big enough to bring the back pan to a boil for a few minutes. Then I cross my fingers. The trick is to have enough sap on hand to put in so your levels don't get too low. That's harder to do when there's a warm weather shut off like right now.

Sorry, again. I feel your pain.

Sean

[buckeye gold]

sean gives good advice, I always make sure everything left in the pan has boiled for at least several minutes. I had this happen once and it was because I added sap after the boil had quit and it never got sterilized. It's a lot of work, but Dr. Tim is right clean, clean, clean and then rinse rinse rinse. I would even bring my pan to a hard boil when i start back and then open my draw off and drain most of the sap that was boiling and discard. I am for taking zero chances of contamination.

[markct]

I think part of my culprit may be this dumb lappiere float box design that has raw sap sitting in the float and never gets flowed thru really, I had last year noticed it a little funky in the float box and then started making the habbit of pouring sweet from the flue pan drain thru the float box so it was well sterilized. For some reason I forgot this year, float box was slimy as can be, and with concentrate I think that's what happened

[markct]

I washed my storage tanks, washed my pans with the steam cleaner and dairy acid, washed all fittings and other parts in the sink and soaked overnight in dairy acid cleaner. Reassembled it today and boiled a few hundred gallons of clean municipal water thru the pans so hopefully that will be enough to get rid of everything. How would I know if this microbe dr Tim speaks of is in my tubing in the woods? Really no way to clean everything the sap touches. I did clean my storage tanks especially my concentrate ones

[DrTimPerkins]

There is a wide assortment of microbes living in sap. You really needn't worry about any particular one being present unless it goes out of control, such as what happened to make the ropey sap/sweet in your evaporator. That overwhelms all the other microbes and gets everywhere.

Yes, float boxes are one of the culprits where these things start to proliferate. They sometimes don't get hot enough to kill the microbes....but get do nice and warm with a good amount of sugar so they'll grow fast. Best to drain them during short spells with no boils. At the very least, drain them into a bucket and pour back into the pans during boiling occasionally to let hot sap flow into the box and kill whatever is in there.

[Clinkis]

I think part of my culprit may be this dumb lappiere float box design that has raw sap sitting in the float and never gets flowed thru really, I had last year noticed it a little funky in the float box and then started making the habbit of pouring sweet from the flue pan drain thru the float box so it was well sterilized. For some reason I forgot this year, float box was slimy as can be, and with concentrate I think that's what happened

I had this exact problem a couple years ago. I also have Lapiere float boxes and unboiled concentrate would get left in the float box and jello like slime would grow in there and make some nasty smelling stuff. Like others I pour hot sap from flu pan into floatbox to make sure it gets hot enough

[markct]

My old soldered pans had a much smaller float box and also was connected straight to the pan, just a nipple horizontal, this one holds a lot more sap and has an elbow so not as direct to the float box so doesn't exchange sap as much with the pan.

[RC Maple]

This just happened to me too. I always drain my pan and clean the day following the last boil so my sweet has sat in a 5 gal bucket for a week now. I went to boil a little bit of it to make sure it was still good but I could tell trying to get it in the pan to boil it something was wrong. It didn't stink but I figured I better consult the trader to see how to proceed. It seemed ok in the pan on the stove but I won't put it in with the fresh sap I am boiling tomorrow. At least it was only 2.5 gal of sweet.

[RC Maple]

I did boil that sweet a little more in the sauce pan and it looked ok but when I went to pour it out...THEN I was glad I didn't put that in my evaporator pan. It hurt to throw that 2.5 gal of sweet out but I see that it was the best thing to do. I am now cleaning my 5 gal gathering bucket with hot water and bleach before using it again. Since I knew that I would have no sap for a week or so I should have just finished that batch with the turkey fryer or found a way to fit it in the freezer. Lesson learned.