Ice

[Bill'sSugarShack]

Do you throw out the ice in your buckets/tanks, or collect it all?

I've heard of some throwing the ice in the buckets out...but would think it'd kinda depends on temps and amount of ice. Last few days most all of the sap was frozen.
I just put all of it in the holding tank (in part to keep sap cool if it ever warms up) and will truck it home as it thaws out.

[Fred Henderson]

Most of us throw it away. Ice is mother natures RO.

[Brent]

I had about 100 buckets freeze up about 80% solid on me a couple days ago so I put some bins in the gator and collected them all. As we came home the sweeter syrup drained out of them. Each bin had ice from about 20 buckets so it got averaged pretty well. The sap meter said it was 11 brix.
Wow 6 gallons to one !!!

So the question then was how much more sugar was still in the ice. I took a couple of lumps in and set them beside the evaporator while I boiled. When there was a few inches of melt in the bucket, I checked again. Still way up near 10. The next few inches melted and it was 5. The last quarter of the ice melted down and was less than 1. So the last bit to melt, and likely the first bit to freeze is pretty worthless.

So from that one time "study", I would say if you've got a little ice on top, toss it. If half the bucket is frozen it's questionable what to do. I guess it depends on if you can haul in, store it and let it melt.

I also have some 275 gallon coca-cola syrup containers for storage. Before we got the new evap going, one was just about full and nearly frozen solid. When it melted down some we started boiling. I would guess there is the equivalent of 50 yo 75 gallons of ice still stuck on the sides and in lumps on the bottom. When spring really does get here and melts it, I'm going to measure the sugar in it before I decide what to do with it.

The problem with a partial bucket in the woods is, how do you wait long enough for the sweet to drain. I takes a long time, like 10 minutes or more before it drains fully and the ice turns snowy white.

[pennslytucky]

i put a gallon of 4% sap in the freezer and pulled it out every hour and dumped the sap out to re-freeze and threw out about 1/2" of ice. did it 6 times and had almost a quart of 11% sap left. the ice was never sweet to the taste...

[Toblerone]

I've noticed that there is usually lots of sweet sap locked up in the cracks and crevices in the ice. I would smash up the ice and let it drain well. Or, since I only boil once or twice a week, I often keep the ice as insurance to keep any new sap I collect from spoiling on those above-50-degrees days.