Bucket Cleaning

[BIGMAPLEFARM]

Do you folks clean your buckets before you put them away for the season or before the start of the next. I washed mine wiith hot water and let them air dry, stacked them and stored them in clean sealed garbage bags. Do I have to clean them again before i put them out next year.

[michigansugarman]

I clean mine at the end of the season. I use a three step process. First, I wash them in a bleach solution, then I wash them with a little soapy water, then I rinse them very, very well with plain water. I put them away and use them without any further cleaning the next year.

[gomish]

Do you folks clean your buckets before you put them away for the season or before the start of the next. I washed mine wiith hot water and let them air dry, stacked them and stored them in clean sealed garbage bags. Do I have to clean them again before i put them out next year.

They always say a 1 bleach to 20 water solution is good to clean up, then clean water rinse. I only have 20 so I plan to clean them when they go away and before they go back up next year.

[3rdgen.maple]

I always do it at the end of the season. I would think it would be alot harder to get the dried on crap out of them in the spring. Not to mention playing in water in the cold weather is no fun. I do not rewash them in the spring. They are stored in a dry area and covered.

[Big_Eddy]

I always wash them before I put them away. I used to wash them again before using them, but have not done so in the last 4 years, with no change in syrup quality.

[Fred Henderson]

I will be washing close to 600 this year. I made a washer which uses a big brush. I use dishwasher soap and double rinse. Last year it to us about 2 hours.

[maplefrank]

i'm using a few drops of Shaklees Basic H this year, cleans them real easy....i have over 1200

[3rdgen.maple]

I was in the auto section at a local store and seen one of those ball cleaning brushes that go on a drill and looked at the large one and thought man that would make a great bucket brush for 20 bucks. Anybody ever try it?

[TF Maple]

Do you folks clean your buckets before you put them away for the season or before the start of the next. I washed mine wiith hot water and let them air dry, stacked them and stored them in clean sealed garbage bags. Do I have to clean them again before i put them out next year.

I guess the first question would be "why would a person want to put them away dirty? " I cleaned mine with hot water too and air dried before storage.

I do plan to rinse in bleach water to kill bacteria and rinse with water before using them next year, just to start out as clean as possible. I had dots of mold start growing on the pail bottoms after about 3 weeks of use this year. Cleaning them out with a little sap really didn't slow down the mold growth. Used bleach water and rinse water and that cleaned them good for the rest of the sap run.

Bleach water should be 200 Parts per Million strength left in contact for 1 minute to sanitize anything. That solution is one half ounce of 5.25% bleach to a gallon of water. If you have hard water you might want to double it to one ounce to a gallon of water to make sure you have at least 200 ppm of chlorine. That double strength would be one part bleach to 128 parts water.

[maplefrank]

has anyone tried Basic H????

[argohauler]

I wash my buckets in the winter because this is when I have the time. I go from making syrup to restocking my wood supply to my market gardening farm. No time for washing buckets in the spring.

What I do is on a nice warm sunny day shortly after the season is over, I take off all the buckets and dump them if there's anything in them. Then I set them upside down at the base of the tree to dry. By the time I'm done taking off the buckets, they're dry where I started. I have no problems doing it this way!

Then I wash them in the house in the laundry room and let them air dry.

[SeanD]

Holy cow! 625 buckets inside? I had fifty or so to wash this year (outside) and I had to make all kids of funky inverted bucket pyramids in the sugar house for them to dry off. The buckets on the very bottom didn't dry after a week because they made an air tight seal with the pans they sat on. How do you deal with 625?!!

Sean

[Dave Y]

Try washing a couple of thousand in the winter, it doesn't work best to do them in the warmer weather.

[collinsmapleman2012]

pressure washer or a good hose. we do 1300 at school, and soak the lids in barrels. set them up in grids of 25, wash well, dump, stack in pyramids as high as we can reach, then let dry for a week. pull the covers out and stack them in a wooden rack that fits in a tractor bucket or put them in milk crates. stack them by sliding a column at a time onto itself, and then place in stacks of 25. makees it easy to handle next year. then in the spring, pull tractor up, load buckets and go. looking to build a 3pt platform for lids, more stuff at once, and tractor needs the weight lol darn JD.

[argohauler]

I used to have 625 taps on buckets. Some of them are 2 into 1. 15, 16, 18, and 20 litre plastic pails. Then I bought a couple hundred more aluminums.

I wash them in a 4 legged laundry tub. I make pyramids and sit them on newspaper. Bottom ones take a day/day and a half. Doesn't matter if the aluminum or plastic is a bit damp, never been a problem if I stack the bottom ones damp.

I also wash on cruddy days, spend the good ones cutting wood.

I used to wash them in the spring. I'd do it outside and made sure it was nice and warm and not breezy. I'd set them up in pyramids on pallets and the bottom ones dried no problem.

[Big_Eddy]

I pick a sunny day, wash them on the front lawn using a bucket brush chucked in the cordless drill, the hose and 2 big rubbermaid containers. Soap in the first, scrub with the brush, bleach in the second, rinse with the hose and toss them to a kid to invert them on the grass individually. We leave them in the sun till the evening, then stack them in 20's and put them away.

We do 100 buskets and it probably takes 2 hours total including the prep and the stacking in the evening.

With 1 kid dropping buckets into the soap bin, and one lining them up on the grass to dry, it goes pretty fast.

I've found neoprene gloves to be a great invention for this job.

[Dave Y]

Most of you on here are pretty handy and like to tinker and make your own equipment. So why not build your own bucket washer? All you need is a galvinzed syrup drum and a coople of pulleys and an electric motor. Also I think it is Leader that sells a bucket brush that can be mounted on a motor. Mount the barrel on a stand and you have your self a bucket washer. of course you have to cut away part of the barrel and put all the pieces together in the correct configureation. but it should be fairly simple to do. I have one that is built like that, and it works great. I would post some pics but I have never taken any. If I get the chance I will take some and post them in my picasa album.

[shane hickey]

I agree with dave. I made mine but mounted to the three point,the brush is hooked the pto of my tractor put it on idal and start washing, cheap and easy.

[collinsmapleman2012]

why mot, if you have one, mount the brush onto a power tapper? less equipment and real quick, or it at least seems it to me

[3rdgen.maple]

I agree with dave. I made mine but mounted to the three point,the brush is hooked the pto of my tractor put it on idal and start washing, cheap and easy.

Thanks just when I think I have tinkered enough this winter you got to go post something like this and now I have to build one. When does all this madness stop.

[shane hickey]

Thanks just when I think I have tinkered enough this winter you got to go post something like this and now I have to build one. When does all this madness stop. Usally stops when you old and cant walk any longer. shane

[3rdgen.maple]

Now im picturing a 3 pt mounted tub with a brush in it mounted to the PTO and when I pull a tap, dip and wash the bucket and stick it on the wagon. Sweet. Now how do I keep the water in it from splashing out while driving. A cover hmmm. Sweet Someone better patent this thing before I do lol.

[1050jimbob]

anyone have a picture of a bucket washer, most importantly the brush assembly. I have an old one copied from the grimm setup minus the brush

jimcronk@rogers.com

[smokeyamber]

Ok, so maybe I am lazy, I just wash em with a hose, set up to dry on a windy day, once dry stack and store, no bleach, cleaner, etc.... Figure I collect every day and then filter/boil the sap so how sterile do they need to be ? Once they get hung on a tree with a cover they are open to everything around blowing in... One item I do strive for is to store in a good place where they don't get stuff on them , usually basement, but this season eaves of the shack.

For 600 I would build the washer, just to save on time, water and handling. Still don't know how you dry all those buckets...

[adverdsmith]

All you need is a galvinzed syrup drum and a coople of pulleys and an electric motor. Also I think it is Leader that sells a bucket brush that can be mounted on a motor.