Cleaning Pan

[steve J]

I clean my pan today and when I got to the underside I expected it to be black and sooty but I found I had a hard crust type soot on bottom which was very hard to get off. First is this normal? and would i have been better off to have treated bottom of pan with something like PAM before I had started boiling?

[WF MASON]

Steve, what your seeing is the pitch or colesoete(excuse my spelling) from the burnt wood . You see it on every pan. Take a putty knife or stiff brush and remove it. Some do this throughout the season.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Bill,

Would it hurt to brush the underside of the syrup pan with a wire brush during the season or over time, would this damage the pan??

I know they sell syrup pan brushes, just curious if the bristles are plastic or metal??

[mapleman3]

Scrape & brush. metal will worf better, unless your gouging it I think you will be fine, but you do need to get the suff off for it will act as an insulation and not let as much heat get to the pan, 1/8"of soot and buildup will drop boil rate , in boilers it drops your heat transfer incredibly, then the heat just goes up the stack!! 8O

[brookledge]

I know that all pans will get soot on the bottom of the pans but if you are actually getting alot of creosoete building up them your wood is probably to green or you are not getting a hot enough fire to burn it off. Either way you need to get it off so that you get better heat transfer.
Keith

[lharris1]

I noticed that after a cleaning the stack temperature would not go over about 800 deg F, but after firing for a few hours it would go over 1000 deg. I wish there was a way to clean while firing. I used to be involved in large coal fired boiler operation. We had soot blowers that used high pressure steam blowing through a nozzle on a moving lance.