Sap Storage between boils

[Mboeselager]

2 questions:

1. After my boil yesterday, i have about 5 gallons of "not quite yet" maple syrup. How long can I store this before my next boil?

2. Damper question, my starcat has a damper below the wood grate. I have always keep it wide open, is there any reason to start adjusting this. My thought is the more open, the hotter the burn. Thoughts?

[TheNamelessPoet]

2 questions:

1. After my boil yesterday, i have about 5 gallons of "not quite yet" maple syrup. How long can I store this before my next boil?

2. Damper question, my starcat has a damper below the wood grate. I have always keep it wide open, is there any reason to start adjusting this. My thought is the more open, the hotter the burn. Thoughts?can you freeze it? or at least put it in the fridge somehow. just dint freeze it in milk jugs... takes a long time to thaw ( been there done that)

[billyinvt]

1. Do you have any snow left? Bury the five gallon bucket right in the snow.
2. Wide open is the way to go. You want all the air you can get.

[PaulRenaud]

Exercise caution when embedding your storage bucket in the snow. I had a fast thaw last year that caused the snow to melt unevenly, 4 buckets tipped over and I lost the contents of one because the lid wasn't tight enough.

So I moved the remaining buckets into my outdoor woodshed to keep them out of the sun and shoveled some snow on them to keep them cool. Worked fine.

[Old County Road]

Just thought I would chime in on the freezing sap issue - which actually can be beneficial. I found that if I froze sap solid in a container and then let it partially thaw (say 50% ice and 50% liquid) the sugar content in the thawed sap was sometimes 7 or 8% and when the ice block melted it was close to 0%. It has been years since I did this so I think those were the numbers, so you might want to experiment yourself. I had the sap in 7 gallon containers and had access to a walk in freezer at the time. It was a big time saver in terms of my backyard boiling.

[woodguyrob]

2 questions:



2. Damper question, my starcat has a damper below the wood grate. I have always keep it wide open, is there any reason to start adjusting this. My thought is the more open, the hotter the burn. Thoughts?

I have the Dauntless, the same damper set up. I left it wide open at first, never touching it. The last boil I closed it about an inch just to see what happens, the boil kept going and even looked like the boil was getting better in the back side of the pan. I'll experiment more next year. We're done here in CT.