Hello Murphy's Law and Too Tall - first off - Listen to Dr. Tim - 99% of the time His advice is very good. I hold back 1% because he is a human.
Defoamers - I use a commercial defoamer most of the time - but you always keep it in a warm place - or when you really need it - the darn stuff is a solid in the bottle - when it is in a liquid state a few drops works. Keep a backup on hand - gosh butter, olive oil. cream, about anything oily (sorry wiam - Backyarders are animals) -----As a backyarder not worried about killing paying customers - when you get serious foaming going on - get it under control fast - or you will have a mess. ---Not really a big deal if you catch it. Ok - Ya know about batch boiling - I go with two inches of sap in my batch pan and boil away - it gets down about an inch - I bring it back up with hot sap from a preheater pan or pot. You keep this up till ya run out of sap or get bored with boiling and let it boil down till you start getting a little edgy about the level - If you are near syrup the bubbles get big and shiny - test with a syrup hydrometer - chances are your are getting in the near syrup stage. I would pour it off into a smaller pan - like a restaurant steam pan or stainless pot and finish it down to syrup in this - I use a turkey fryer burner for my heat source to finish. Enough about Batch Boiling - unless you have some questions. -----Mike----