foaming syrup pan

[muddyfootprints]

Sunday I had my longest boil of the year and towards the end of the day my syrup pan started foaming and I could not get it to go down with de-foamer or any thing except dropping the heat way down.

It was our 4th boil of the year on the new 2 x 6 drop flue and a total of about 850 gallons for the year, we have switched draw off sides on each boil but could the excess foam be from a build of niter, or just that after 8 hours of boiling everything was very hot. Our draw offs were pretty big all day 3/4 to 1 gallon at a time couldn't get it down any lower. I was running the syrup pan about 1 1/4 inches and with all the foam I raised it to 1 1/2.

When I did do a draw off the next time it was almost 1 1/4 gallons and it stopped foaming for about 5 minutes and then right back to it.

any ideas????

thanks

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

In my opinion, you need to clean the syrup pan or it is low quality sap. Cloudy sap or dirty syrup pan is the only thing that will make mine foam bad, usually it is the pan needs cleaned and has too much sugar sand buildup.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Muddy how long was it between drawoffs? Could it be that you were getting behind and you had syrup in all of the finish section? I have had it creep up on me and I had to shut it down and draw off the let the evap ballance out. Once the syrup takes over the entire finish section it will foam like crazy. Was the foam large shiny bubbles if so your flirting with danger.

[muddyfootprints]

It was a little bit between the last draw off but I was checking the temp with a digital probe and even pulled some out of the middle and did hydro test on it and it wasn't ready. the bubbles were very small and lots of them.

It sure looked done to me but temp and hydo said it wasn't. when we did draw off it was a very nice tasty light amber

I think I'll pull the syrup pan and give that a little cleaning before the next boil.