Start over to improve grade?

[jrgagne99]

Toward the end of the year, has anyone ever emptied their pans and boiled their sweet down separately (say on a turkey fryer or similar) and then start over in the evaporator with new sap? I'm considering doing this to try to improve the grade. I would give the pans a quick scrub and rinse (not an end-of-season cleaning) before re-filling with the new sap to try to get back into Dark (from Very Dark).

[Sugarmaker]

Sure that is always a option. Good luck, Keep boiling! Let us know how you make out.
Regards,
Chris

[jrgagne99]

Does it work?

[ecolbeck]

My take is that the grade has to do with the quality of the sap, not the cleanliness of the evaporator.

[NhShaun]

It won't guarantee a change in grade by any means. But cleaner sap pushed through the evaporator faster will likely raise the grade 1 level. But it is nearing the end of the season, so you may not see a difference. Give it a try and let us know the result. I would fill a grade bottle with what's left in your syrup pan and then one of your first draw for comparison. Either way you'll end up with cleaner syrup that is easier to filter.

[Sugarmaker]

Does it work?
Sure it will work if mother nature give you better sap next time it runs. Its a roll of the dice. It might come back up a grade even if you did not clean up. Have seen it happen many times.
Regards,
Chris

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

As others have said, you may or may not. Quality of the sap and sugar content are the overriding factors. The one thing you can do to help is get it boiled off quickly. That is essentially doing what you can to help sap quality. Because of the weather and a week between boils for us, we boiled out our pans last weekend and made a really nice dark grade with it. Good flow yesterday and am starting over, I will post how me make out wirh today's boil. It would be great if we got some more amber but without an RO it will likely depend on what the sugar content is.

[mountainvan]

I did a couple of days ago. Started new that is. I also cleaned everything but my tubing, Tanks, pumps, and evaporator. Went from very very dark,lt 2, to middle of the road dark,lt 30.

[jrgagne99]

Wow, going from 2% light transmittance to 30% is quite an improvement. Thanks for the info. After starting anew, I will post an update after the first draw. Hopefully I will get enough sap by end of day Thursday to get a draw and make a decent comparison on the Hanna.

[SeanD]

I always get lighter syrup after a full cleaning of the evaporator. Cleaning the front pan prolongs the grade I'm at and cleaning both pans definitely lightens things up. I only clean the back pan 1x during the season, usually late when things are warmer, to give my gravity filters a break and it really does work for that. I don't do anything serious, just drain and rinse - enough to get the loose niter. I've gone from Dark to Amber many, many times. This year it brought my syrup from 36% to 49% with the next batch of sap that was very cloudy, so not quite a grade change, but close.

[jrgagne99]

I was pretty impressed. My syrup went from 24% to 42 (Very-Dark to Dark). I think it would have been even lighter if the first batch of sap I used to sweeten the pan hadn't been from the tail end of the warm spell last week.

[Sugarmaker]

So yes all this sounds about normal. Your beyond the half way point of the season. Everything has some amount of normal microbs in it. you want to see if you can come back up a grade so you do your best to clean what you can. Then the weather gerts warm for the next run and the sap is even worse than before but you make just a little lighter syrup. All sounds right to me. I have heard of some folks cleaning there rig every boil.
I did a mid season drain and rinse of the evaporator, sanitized all 30 of my tanks in the sugarbush. and came back up a grade.

Bottom row is 2021 samples of each boil. (note the darkest made was the slow boil during our Maple Taste and Tour weekend). Then the clean up and back to Amber, then end of season Dark Robust.
https://i.imgur.com/r51SiYE.jpg

Regards,
Chris

[jrgagne99]

Similar result. My cleanup occurred three spots from the right.

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