Mold in the evaporator

[sawyer40]

Sap has not run here since march 7. I've been hoping but it ain't going to happen. Just looked in the syrup pan yesterday and it had some mold on top. Can I save the syrup? I plugged the ports between the flu pan and syrup pan. Drained the flu pan of sap and poured it into the syrup pan. The sap in the flu pan was boiled slightly. When I shut down last time I ran the bulk tank that feeds the evaporator dry then shut off the burner so everything except the couple gallon in the preheater got heated good. I filled my flu pan with water and as the sap boiled away in the syrup pan I skimmed the top. Thats what it says to do on the syrup bottles. So do you guys think the syrup is ok?

[KenWP]

Skim the mold off and boil it. Sometimes syrup gets mold and they do the same thing with that. Taste it to make sure it never went to vinegar first also.

[maple flats]

Should be good, be sure you don't mix it, skim before boiling as much as possible.
Next time, when you shut down make sure everything is boiled a few minutes before cooling off. What I do is when getting ready to stop, if I am emptying the feed tank, I open the valve and let it all go into the rear pan while still boiling hard. On mine I have a site tube inline that is marked at 2-4-6-8-10-12-18-75 and then higher. To get these I actually emptied the tank and put 2 gal at a time in and marked the site tube up thru 18 gal. Above that it in be using my inline meter while filling. As I am boiling and towards the end I fill the firebox at 18 gal, then at 12 gal I unhook the infeed float and dump that 12 gal into the flue pan to boil hard. After the boil stops I cover the pans and float boxes and get ready to head out. This gives between 10-15 minnutes good boil on my rig (I have a 3x8 with a 3x6 flue pan). Other sizes would work the same way, just the numbers would be different. That 12 gal is plenty for my rig and with the high pressure air the fire only lasts for about 25-30 minutes. I leave the float operating in the syrup pan until the boil stops. I then have just about 1/4" low to start the next boil but it is no where near too low. I boil my rear pan at 3/4" and the front at 1". Upon shut down I then have 1/2" and 1"rear and front respectively. With the hard boil you will have several days with no problems. I have never had to hold this way for more than 9 days so I can not speak for longer than that. I might empty the rear pan and finish off it all as needed into the front, with water in the rear if I got to day 9 and no sap in sight.

[sawyer40]

What do you mean by do not mix it maple flat? If you mean with other syrup I drew it off filtered it through my cone filter and put it in my finishing tank by itself. As for shutting down and boiling the sap left in the pans I do it almost the same as you do.

[wnybassman]

What do you mean by do not mix it maple flat? If you mean with other syrup I drew it off filtered it through my cone filter and put it in my finishing tank by itself. As for shutting down and boiling the sap left in the pans I do it almost the same as you do.

I think he meant don't mix the mold into the syrup.