Frozen buckets

[butler]

Have 100 frozen buckets... anyone have any ideas to thaw them? Need to empty them so were ready for next run.... we had a strange run here where the trees ran for about 1-2 hours a day for 2 weeks. Never enough to gather but eventually filled buckets??

[smokeyamber]

Same here, 70 frozen...

I just leave frozen buckets, if they have any space in them once the the run starts they thaw out pretty well. You will find in a alot of cases there is a core of unfrozen sap in some , that is the cheap man's R/O. I find that mine that I take the unfrozen sap out test at 3.5%.

[Daveg]

Do you have any larger containers you can dump the frozen sap into, i.e., a metal trough? If so, you can use a cattle water tank heater to thaw it out. It helps if you can give it an occasional stir..........My 55 gallon head tank freezes occasionally and I use a heater with success.........

[Daveg]

Same here, 70 frozen...

I just leave frozen buckets, if they have any space in them once the the run starts they thaw out pretty well. You will find in a alot of cases there is a core of unfrozen sap in some , that is the cheap man's R/O. I find that mine that I take the unfrozen sap out test at 3.5%.
That 3.5% number will vary, depending on the ratio of frozen to unfrozen sap in a given sample. If 95% of the sap is liquid, the amount of sugar will be less than, for example, if the sample was only 50% liquid.