What causes huge amounts of sugar sand?

[Jim Foster]

Cooking in a large pan over a fire and finishing off on the stove I am getting almost 1/3 sugar sand. How can I ileviate this? Clogging up my filters to no end. Box Elder trees.

Jim

[Jim Foster]

Surely someone here has an idea.............

Jim

[DrTimPerkins]

Could be several things. Different years and different time of the season can play a role. Same with soils. In this case it is possible that Boxelder just naturally has more malic acid (a natural organic acid found in maple sap that is a major constituent of niter).

[Galena]

Hmmm I've only tapped Box Elders once, don't recall excess amounts of nitre. However, I notice that my own smaller sugar maples seem to produce more nitre than the bigger, more mature trees. I'm on sandy loamy soil, lots of calcite in the water, so assuming the quality of groundwater is also a factor. Hope this helps!

[maple flats]

Back when I was only producing maple for home use I had up to 6 taps in Box Elder (and 3 in a sugar maple). I don't recall a major amount of niter.
That being said, different years can and do have big differences in the niter.
After I started making more syrup and on a real evaporator, I had one season where I got loads of niter, and it was extremely fine. That year I actually set up a dedicated filter using a little impeller pump, a suction line and a pre-filter cone. On the out hose, after the pump I attached a cone pre-filter. I then ran the pump, drawing from the bottom of the syrup channels, thru the pump and back into the channel by way of that cone pre-filter. When the cone got so flow was restricted, I shut off the pump, drained the liquid and dumped the niter into the trash. That year was thew only one I had that happen, but I hd to filter it out every day, sometimes 2x a day. In 20 years of making syrup, that was the only year I had that happen, thank God. It was sure a nuisance to deal with. That year I had all sugar maples, no box elders nor reds.

[Jim Foster]

Thanks fellas. This is the worst I've seen. Got 3 pint jars of filtered and they were filled over 1/2 hour at a time. Have to be re sealed. The rest I just dumped sugar sand and all in jars and will wait for them to settle, pour clear syrup out and re seal. Ugh......

Jim

[GWebb]

Thanks fellas. This is the worst I've seen. Got 3 pint jars of filtered and they were filled over 1/2 hour at a time. Have to be re sealed. The rest I just dumped sugar sand and all in jars and will wait for them to settle, pour clear syrup out and re seal. Ugh......

Jim
I'm late in the KY season and getting warm with a lot of niter. I filter 4 times: 1. through cheesecloth out of the barrel into boil pan, 2. through 3 older cone pre-filters when I dump from the boiling pan to a pot at about 40-50 % sugar, 3. then lately this year with filter aid mixed and through 3 pre-filters before syrup, 4. then final with filter aid, 4 cone pre-filters and orlon cone. Came out really clear. A lot of filtering, but earlier batch was a little cloudy. Earlier in season was ok. I use about 1/4 cup (or more) filter aid to the gal of syrup. Gwebb

[Galena]

I'm late in the KY season and getting warm with a lot of niter. I filter 4 times: 1. through cheesecloth out of the barrel into boil pan, 2. through 3 older cone pre-filters when I dump from the boiling pan to a pot at about 40-50 % sugar, 3. then lately this year with filter aid mixed and through 3 pre-filters before syrup, 4. then final with filter aid, 4 cone pre-filters and orlon cone. Came out really clear. A lot of filtering, but earlier batch was a little cloudy. Earlier in season was ok. I use about 1/4 cup (or more) filter aid to the gal of syrup. Gwebb

Gwebb the last 3 filters make sense to me, but can I ask why you use cheesecloth? It's great for chunky stuff like jams and jelly, but for trapping tiny little particles of nitre....it may catch some but I'm guessing most of it must shoot right through all those holes. Maybe you mean a jelly bag, which is very different?

[GWebb]

Gwebb the last 3 filters make sense to me, but can I ask why you use cheesecloth? It's great for chunky stuff like jams and jelly, but for trapping tiny little particles of nitre....it may catch some but I'm guessing most of it must shoot right through all those holes. Maybe you mean a jelly bag, which is very different?

Yeah, even quadrupled it probably doesn't do much for niter. I just don't like the idea of boiling ants, flies, bark.......