Sweeten the pan?

[Tweegs]

Have seen the term "Sweetening the Pan" bandied about, but not quite sure what that means.

What is the purpose, how is it accomplished and what is the advantage?

[ackerman75]

Sweetening the pans means after your take your last drawoff for the day there is still some sap in the pan for the next boil that is almost syrup

[Haynes Forest Products]

The term as I see it means you have cooked the sap top the point that all the pans have sweet cooked sap in them. All the pans might have differant degrees of sweet but all in all its all sweet.
I dont draw off anything other than finished syrup so all my pans keep some degree of sweet sap/syrup. Dont empty the pans every time you stop for the day. Unless your batch cooking you always want to start the next day with pans that are sweet. On multi pan units they have valves or plugs between the pans to keep the differant grades of sweetness seperate.

[Tweegs]

OK, understood.

No problems with bugs or rodents?

With my little operation I figure on firing Sat, Sun and Wed.
Is three days (by the time I get to it again) in the pan an issue?

[tappin&sappin]

3 days won't be an issue. Just watch it freezing in your pan. If your pan is divided, the sweet closest to sap will want to freeze first. I have a 2x6 and I put two heat lamps (light bulbs w/ a reflector that you can get from tractor supply) in there. That keeps things from freezing.

And if you need to switch draw off sides, you can drain things and move the sweet closest to syrup to the side you are going to draw off.

- Jake