End of season line question

[Plutoman15]

This is my first year tapping and I am using a few 3/16 inch lines. What do you do at the end of the season? Pull the taps out and let them hang? Pull them out and cut them off the line?

Do you plug all lines both ends or let them open?

Buckets seem straight forward but I am not sure what to do with the trees I have on lines.

Any help is appreciated.
Joe

[mol1jb]

Most will pull and wash the the tubing either with water or a cleaning solution such as hydrogen peroxyde and water. Then plug all parts of the line to help keep debris and insects out. I found on the leader line that keeping the taps on the drops will plug on the T better than just plain tubing.

[Plutoman15]

Are you saying you take all the lines down or clean in place and plug?

[mol1jb]

Are you saying you take all the lines down or clean in place and plug?

Clean in place and plug

but it all depends on your setup. Some don't like to leave the lines up all year and a few of us have such trouble with squirrels that if we do leave them up they will get all chewed up.

[Plutoman15]

Ok, thank you.

What do you use to push cleaner through the lines? Suringe?

[EBG18T]

There is also a process using an air compressor. Thats what I plan on doing the end of the season. I still have to figure it out though. Lol


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[Haynes Forest Products]

This is what I know
Some cleaners attract critters so do your homework.
It sounds so simple but it ain't.
Liquid will take the path of least resistance.
just blowing air thru the lines will help but wont clean it all.
If you don't clean them its not the end of the world.
you don't need a 2" trash pump to try and force cleaner thru 3/16.
trying to push sap up hill thru 3/16 with all taps open will only clean the lower 30 taps.
I know leaving the lines with sap in them is easier.
If your going to pull the taps and just leave them hang don't cut the taps off this year.

[Plutoman15]

Meaning you can pull the taps, let them hang and reuse next year?

[buckeye gold]

I finally got my hydrogen peroxide today, so I pulled taps and flushed my 3/16th lines. I was trying to figure out how to get it into lines when I noticed the high command had set an empty dawn dish soap bottle by the sink. I had a thought, coulld I squeeze solution into a tap with it. SO I grabbed a tap and discovered mouth of the tap fit perfectly inside the flare of the cap. If you push steady pressure it would seal right against it. I thoroughly rinsed the bottle, mixed up a couple gallons of peroxide solution and headed to the top of one of my runs. When I pulled the tap it was sweet to hear a hissing (which meant I still had vacuum) and I tipped the bottle onto the tab and bingo with just a little squeezing it sucked the solution right into the line. I let it suck in about a pint and then I squirted a good squirt in each drop as I pulled taps. It took about a additional quart of solution by the time I done a run of taps. I was pretty pleased how smooth it went. I watched as I walked along and let the solution ruun ahead of me before I pulled a tap and moved on. This is my first year with tubing so I'd like some opinions, did I get enough solution in to properly disinfect. I left the drops hang and will plug everything i a day or too. Did I do right?

[maple flats]

It should not require a pint on 3/16, half that should likely do it fine. If using hydrogen peroxide, it should be food grade, medical peroxide has preservatives in it which are toxic. Typical food grade hydrogen peroxide will be 35% too, rather than the low % in medical grade. Be careful, it will burn, read and follow directions.
When I used it I used 1.0 qt/150 gal of water. Even at that it will burn skin.

[buckeye gold]

Thanks Dave, I did use food grade Hydrogen peroxide. I have used reagent/lab grade for 30 years in other applications and learned a long time ago it can give you a pretty good chemical burn. I mixed it at 5% so it was pretty stout and I still ended up with a few white spots on my fingers, but a couple good applications of O'Keefe's hand cream and I was good. One quart in 150 gallons is only .17% that seems weak to me. All the disinfecting recommendations I have used in the past were 3-5% from the bottle which calculates out to around 1% to 1.75% active ingredient. Lower doses require a long contact time to disinfect. I could not find any Maple recommendations so I went with what I had experience at. I hope I didn't make it too hot. I don't see any harm, it's an oxidizer and should get all the mold, microbe and fungus at that rate and then disapate. we used to use it as a fungicide, it worked well.

[sbedilion]

Do you guys know if any of the normal big box stores carry food grade Hydrogen peroxide? enough to clean 3 runs of 3/16 with 15-25 taps per line.