With the warm weather CT is about to have I'm wondering if I should drain and refrigerate my sweetened 2x3 pan? I won't be boiling again until Friday night (if my sap is still good).
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With the warm weather CT is about to have I'm wondering if I should drain and refrigerate my sweetened 2x3 pan? I won't be boiling again until Friday night (if my sap is still good).
I always protect my concentrate when I don't boil for more than 3 days
Been a couple of days and I won't boil until tomorrow. I just went out and fired up the arch, brought my sweetened pan up to a boil and shut it down. Doing that every couple of days should keep it.
I reduced down my pans as low as i could go safely two days ago and then combined them into 3 of my 5 pans and boiled last night.. Today I'm going to boil down into just one or two of my finish pans. I hate to use up the sweet, but I would hate it more if i lost it.
I ended up draining my pan and saved the sweet in 2 5 gal SS kegs. I am using this opportunity to clean my pan and make some changes to my oil tank evaporator since I can't get full boil and full GPH with my new 2x4 Smoky Lake Hybrid pan. My syrup tatses good, just a little darker than I would like. If the weather lasts I will be back up and ready for the next run.
Stiets, what gph are you getting on the hybrid pan. This is our first year with the 2x4 SL hybrid pan and homemade arch. I've only gotten about 320 gals thru it and we are cooking around 15 gph. I'm pretty happy with that as we have no preheater and we are using natural draft. I think if we make those improvements we could hit 20 gph.
Stiets, how did you clean your pan. I filled mine with vinegar and water and soaked it. Then I drained the vinegar and refilled it 3x with plan water, draining it each time. I used a small wet dry vac to suck the fluid out of the flues. Just wondering how others are doing this.
I always left my evaporator full all season, made sure when I shutdown everything was overfilled then then boiled good, never had a problem even sitting for 4 or 5 days late season. Well this year I boiled Thursday night, then when I went to boil Saturday it seems that the warm weather in the 70s Friday made all the sweet turn to gooey stringy crap. Heard of it happening but never had it happen. Took the whole evaporator apart and steam cleaned it, then boiled a few hours Sunday with just water hopefully I got everything out, plan to boil again today
We are getting 10 - 12 gph. 15 if I run my blower and add thin split wood every 7-10 mins. The syrup pan and the front few inches of the flues boil like crazy. I can't get full boil in the back of the flues like they do on videos posted of the same pan with natural air flow. I used the old oil tank evaporator we had for the 2x4 flat single batch pan we were using last year. It has a 6" stove pipe coming off the back wall with an elbow. I am not sure if that is not enough air flow and it is restricting me when I don't have the blower on. And or its the stove pipe coming out the back wall and not out the top of the evaporator right behind the pan. I did not have a damper in the stove pipe before but installed one yesterday to see if that make a difference to hold back some of the heat when the blower is on. I am almost thinking the blower is to strong and blowing all the heat out, just a thought.Quote:
Originally Posted by lyford
What size stove pipe do you have?
Right now I just have the pan emptied and washed out everything I could. I plan to use a 50/50 vinegar water mix to soak the caked up materials in the syrup pan. I think I pull of the pan and hose it out good. I did buy some acid cleaner from a vendor at the annual CT Maple Producer meeting but don't want to use that till the end of the season.Quote:
Originally Posted by lyford