Best Practices

[bryankloos]

Hi All,

I have 1 year on me with my raised flue pan. It was a major step up from the flat pan, but the added complexity has me scratching my head for best practices.
Let me start by asking a few questions.

1. How often are you firing between boils to keep your sweet sterile (relatively speaking).
2. How do you manage shut downs to ensure everything is at a boil (sterile) as it cools. My first float box feeding the flue pan doesnt boil, so I see this as a point of introducing bacteria as the rig cools off.
3. Do you completely drain your head tanks and preheaters after cool down? If so do you clean/flush them with water after cooldown?
4. How often are you cleaing your head tanks, and how do you clean them?

I had a stretch last season where I almosst had a ropey pan, and I think it was sarting from the float boxes. I want to know how everyone is managing shut down and time between boils to ensure good cleanliness.

What are your best practices?

Thanks,

Bryan

[amasonry]

I draw off the float box until the temp is at least 180. then dump it back in the flue pan, only on the cold side.

[BAP]

I take and scoop boiling sap out of the first section of the flue pan and dump it into the float box 3-4 times to push the raw sap into the pan so it will get hot enough to keep and make sure that any sap in the float box has been heated enough to keep from going ropey. I do this when I stop adding more sap to the pan for the day.

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

#1 and #2 are a little easier for us as we are oil fired so no long duration shut down. We make sure all the sap makes it to the flue pan while it is still boiling and cooling down.

#3/#4- we scrub out the head tank after every boil with hot water. That's all you need if it is stainless. Preheaters and float boxes need to be completely drained after every boil. These are the #1 areas for bacteria to develop. Rinse them hot water if you can, even a cold rinse is better than nothing. They make plugs for the float boxes and pans on most conventional evaporator setups so you can take float boxes, auto draws, etc. apart and clean after the boil.

[SeanD]

Ditto on the float box being the #1 source of rope. I can't remove mine with a plug, so I scoop boiling sap from the flue pan into it until it reachers 200F. A bit overkill, but it's worth it. I rinse the stainless head tank and plastic lines to the float box with hot water. I remove the float and rinse that too. If the flue pan gets a mid-season cleaning, that's when I'll remove the float box and really clean it. That only happens if there is a long time between boils late in the season.

As for firing between boils, it's a non-issue if you are boiling every day or every other day. It's also a non issue during freeze ups. My sugarhouse is unheated, so if it's freezing outside, it's freezing inside. Late in the season, things can slow down because of long warm spells. If I anticipate that happening, I'll flood the flue pan earlier in the last boil, so it's left a little deeper than usual. Then on the off days I can light a small fire to bring it up to a boil without worrying about running it too low.

For those little fires, I just use pine and kindling so that the boil stops almost as soon as the fire goes out. Maybe it boils for 10 minutes or so. It doesn't take much.

[Vtmbz]

I empty both front and rear pans almost every boil and thoroughly clean both. Remove the float box and clean it as well. Like Sean, we’re unheated in the sugarhouse as well. Im usually concentrating and boiling at the same time. Big operations don’t sit on concentrated sap probably due to lack of storage. The goal is to move the sap through processing before bacteria can develop, and always start clean. Im retired, so sap doesn’t have to sit around; it shouldn’t.

[bryankloos]

Thanks guys. All super useful infomration. Much appreciated.