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View Full Version : General cleanliness and sanitation in the sugar house



Haynes Forest Products
08-08-2018, 08:14 AM
Looks like a few good discussions in regards to storing and keeping syrup mold/spoilage free after production. When I open up my shack after it being locked up for most of the off season it needs some good cleaning TLC. My shack stays nice and cool in the summer time because of the lack of sun and ventilation. With all the doors and windows boarded up its a breeding ground for mold.

When I get my shack open and cleaned up things start to look good but I know its far from sanitary. It takes me a good 10 days of prep work of my entire operation before I believe things are CLEAN. I'm constantly walking my shack with a clean towel that has a mild bleach solution wiping and cleaning. All my tanks have covers and most of my syrup moves around the shack by pumps and hoses.

When it comes to hot packing I do have a weak link in my sanitary flow of syrup and that's the filter press discharge hose into the drum it isn't a closed air fitting. That will change with some drum fillers with over flows.

I think the shack is the cleanest when I close it up for the season. All the equipment has been cleaned daily for 30 days and the floors have been swept and hosed down with cleaners. All the bugs are dead and gone and the mice have hit the road. Knock on wood I haven't had mold in my syrup for quite some time and I believe it's because I have gotten better at keeping the spores around the shack to a minimum and my equipment sanitized.

Maple Man 85
08-08-2018, 05:20 PM
Our sugar house is used on a daily basis to either bottle syrup or make and package value add products. We keep pest control logs as well as designate time monthly for deep cleaning aside from typical day to day pickup. We have a commercially licensed kitchen in our sugarhouse so we treat the entire facility as such.

I try not to have partial barrels of syrup so here's what I do... I know my sales volume well enough to have inventories on all products made or bottled. From there I'll break up the barrel and do my value add products first and bottle the rest. Every time I run low on a particular product I look at inventories and make the proper product mix. It's a bit of figuring but I don't deal with storing half used barrels.