Cleaning Pans With Power Tools

[Conococheague]

Does anyone use a wire wheel or fiber cup brush or scotch brite pad attached to a disc grinder to clean their pans at the end of the season. It seems that there should be an attachment that would be hard enough to quickly remove the burnt on sugar without abrading the stainless steel. I’m guessing someone has tried this and would like any suggestions. I’m thinking something along the lines of a brass wire wheel. Thanks.

Conococheague

[Pdiamond]

I do not know of anyone nor have I ever read of anyone ever using power equipment inside a pan. My advice is don't do it. Stick with armstrong power and what works.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Vinegar overnight or longer, pressure washer in the morning. 👍

[BAP]

Does anyone use a wire wheel or fiber cup brush or scotch brite pad attached to a disc grinder to clean their pans at the end of the season. It seems that there should be an attachment that would be hard enough to quickly remove the burnt on sugar without abrading the stainless steel. I’m guessing someone has tried this and would like any suggestions. I’m thinking something along the lines of a brass wire wheel. Thanks.

Conococheague
It will scratch your pans so that niter will stick easier and burn easier

[wiam]

It will scratch your pans so that niter will stick easier and burn easier

Is this from experience?

[toquin]

Used to use wire cup brush and drill all the time. Could clean draw off side of pan in 3-5 min, flush and go again. Now after polishing pan I soak in vinegar and water with a little heat. I still get the same amount of sugar sand

[bill m]

Is this from experience?I can not speak for BAP but in my experiance, yes. Once you remove the finish in your pan (no mater which method you use) niter will stick much easier and make cleaning much more difficult. In my pans I never use anything except a sponge and no chemicals of any kind and after making almost 1000 gallons of syrup my pan still looks like brand new.

[BAP]

Is this from experience?
Yes, scratches made by any source on your pans will make the niter stick quicker and harder to remove.

[ronewold]

I'm glad somebody else is thinking about more forceful ways to remove stuff that is really stuck. I just bought a box full of different types of non-metallic abrasives that fit on my air grinder including Scotch Brite pads of various grits and some nylon bristle abrasive wheels- all to work on my syrup pan. I got it used with a seriously permanent buildup of crust, and I have already been through the pressure washer (multiple times), the vinegar (multiple times), the phosphoric acid, and the flattened copper pipe as a scraper. The pipe worked the best, but we aren't done yet.
I guess what people are saying makes sense- if you have a perfect pan, you could make it worse by scratching it. However, not all pans are in perfect condition. What I'm dealing with is a 20 year old pan that had a history, and I think I can probably make it better rather than worse if I can remove the crust and maybe even improve the finish. It'll never be new, but if I could make it visibly clean, I would be improving the situation. Maybe my permanently stuck crust is due to somebody messing up the finish 10 years ago, but what happened in the past has already happened.
I won't be polishing my pan with the grinder until Summer, but I'll report back on the results.

[ecp]

I've seen and heard of a lot of people using a grinder on pans. It does scratch them, but I understand the frustration with niter. Personally I would recommend stinking with a pan cleaning acid solution. Its amazing how well that works.

[ronewold]

The pan acid has been helpful, as has the vinegar. Part of the reason I am still fighting with this is that on this old pan there is considerable buildup near the top of the partitions and the top of the insides of the pan. Because of the way the float boxes are built, it isn't possible to fill the pan all the way to the top- the float boxes are a couple inches shorter than the pans themselves, so I can only soak the pans up to the height of the float boxes. Any crust above that line is impossible to soak in acid. Of course, that crust isn't in contact with the sap when I am boiling, but it is always visible, and drives me nuts!

[wiam]

When I had a 2x6 the boxes on the front pan prevented from filling full. I used to put it in a plastic tank and fill the tank to top of pan with hot water and pan cleaner to soak a few days at end of season.

[ecp]

I had that problem before as well. What I ended up doing was buying caps that thread on so I could will the pan. You could always buy some plexiglass and sprinkler heads to make a pan washer out of. If that doesn't sounds like a fun summer project I don't know what does.

[Sinoed09]

Depending on how crusty it is you might just need something a bit more abrasive. I used baking powder and a couple tablespoons of salt to remove burned sugar from my pot. Even if you do scratch it there is no rule that says you can’t restore the finish so niter doesn’t stick. You’d have to look into buffing wheels and polishing compound like the kind you use for restoring car rims then some strong liquid cleaner to make sure it’s spotless. You could make the pan look brand new if you wanted to.

[Sugarmaker]

All of the above!
Next time you have pans built, if it is a option, get the boxes the same height so you can fill the pan to the top. then the cleaning solutions can do their job with minimal scrubbing. I found this to be very helpful for cleaning with vinegar/ water solution.
Regards,
Chris