Sugarin' the Pan

[twigbender]

Being a novice to this insanity, I need to humbly seek the advice of you more experienced sugar addicts here. I use a flat pan and have noticed that the first boil produces less syrup per gallon of sap than subsequent boils. I have a good friend that has a raised flue evaporator with a separate syrup pan and she claims that they don't get any syrup out of their first boil of the season.
I've heard the expression "sugarin' the pan" and can only surmise that the first boil must do some sort of seasoning or coating of the pan somewhat like you do to a cast iron dutch oven. Is this correct? What's the real story with this phenomenon? Is there any way to avoid that less-than-ideal result from the first boil?

[Jim Brown]

twigbender; The term sweet'en the pans means that you will be boiling raw sap until the pans have reached a point were the sugar has increased to a concentrate stage and in ready to pull syrup. In my case it takes about 1-2 hours of boiling raw sap to get to a point were the syrup pan has sufficent sugar to raise the temp to near syrup. It will also depend on the sugar content of the sap.
hope this helps

Jim

[twigbender]

Well, if nothing else, at least I'll get the terminology right from now on: "sweet'en the pans." Makes sense.

[Uncle Tucker]

The term "sweeten the pans" is just saying the evap is full of raw sap (2.5%+or-) that dosn't have a gradent of difrent sugar % in each divider yet. After the first boil you leave sap with a higher % of sugar in the pans ( now they are sweetened) so next time you boil the sugar % is much higher in the pans so it dosent take as long to get the sap to 66% sugar. Now the first draw dosent take as long.

[Salmoneye]

On my 2x6 it takes a good 100 gallons of sap boiled down to sweeten the pans and 130-150 to get my first draw depending on sugar/year...

I won't even fire again without 100 gallons of sap...

[MaplePancakeMan]

on my 2x6 it usually takes 125-150 gallons to sweeten, right now i have my sweet drained so i can wash the pans and get her ready for the next boil, 20 gallons of sweet just covers the flues.

[ploefstedt]

Folks -

I have seen in the Maple Syrup Producer's Guide the assertion that it
is possible to artificially sweeten the pans with dark amber. My question
is therefore, how is this done? THere is probably a process (add this
much to this channel after this amount of time), so I hesitate to try
it without some advice on the matter. Any input welcome.

Paul Loefstedt

[Pete33Vt]

I know that the first boil can take forever. But for me (sweet'en the pans) is part of the whole thing. I am not sure but there might be ways guys (rush) the sweet'en process, but I am not sure. Seems to me if you added dark amber to your sap to rush things along your just going to end up with trouble, cause everything in your front pan will be sweeter then your back pan. So yeah you would get a faster first draw but then your second would take forever unless you added enough dark amber to your whole feed tank.
Just my way of thinkin!!

[Russell Lampron]

I speed up pan sweetening time by running the concentrate from my RO to about 16% before I start. When I had to boil raw sap it seemed to take forever. Never heard of adding dark amber to the pans to speed it up. This time of year, like this year I am usually out of syrup anyway.

Russ

[OGDENS SUGAR BUSH]

i cant figure out how adding syrup to the pan speeds things up. diluting it down to sweeten it up??????? dont make sense
RICH

[Jim Brown]

Good thought Russ who has syrup left?.I'm going to have to bottle the 5 gallon I made last week if we don't get some warm weather REAL soon!

Jim

[peacemaker]

i understand what he means ... but he is just a bit off i have heard of it this way after you have been making syrup and get ready to shut down for the night some people draw off some of the almost syrup and then flood the pans ... then the next morning after your up and running you pour back in the almost syrup and it gets u stated faster ... i tried it and didnt think it made much differrence i even took it into the turkey fryer got it closer then pour it back in it helped some ... but you had to be already making syrup still got to get to that point

[SBClorite]

Peacemaker has it right. It helps you from losing the sweet concentrate you made during your boil, if you draw off just before you shut down.
It's for the same reason that you plug your front pan from your flue pan at the end of a boil. You want to preserve the gradient established during the boil.
The only real effect is that when you boil next you can draw off in smaller batches (or dribble continuously if you're that good) instead of having a large draw after waiting a long time and then small batches more frequently later in the night.
I'm a patient man when it comes to boiling and I like to draw off larger batches (seeing so much syrup come off the machine! and reaching for another draw off pail...it's just fun). I seperate my pans at the end of the boil, but I don't see the point of removing sweet, only to add it back.
It doesn't decrease your boil time, or save you fuel, to boil with a higher gradient. I assume a batch boil of 300 gallons would take the same amount of time to reach syrup as boiling 300 gallons with a gradient.
It might give you more control to draw off in smaller batches. Less chance of going beyond syrup if you don't draw quick enough.
Also, I don't think you should add actual syrup back into your pans after you spent so much effort trying to remove it from you pans (might make a darker syrup too).
Those are my thoughts, for what they're worth, but I've only been really sugaring for three years, so I'm still pretty green.