As much as possible I scrub out all the stainless steel hardware I use for boiling using hot water from the tap that is coming straight from the ground - not through the water softener. My reasoning being that as the trees are tapping down to the same source of water as my well, should minimize as much as possible any taste difference. Been leaching off the nitre and leftover syrup in batches of sap as I put em through, that way I get clean filters without worry of residue. In terms of nitre I make small enough batches that I usually just scrape it out and eat it myself. All those minerals, and syrupy too...numnumnum...:-)

BruceL - holy liftin, that must have been a lot of niter you were trying to flush!!! Maybe just scrape it off filters, put it in a plastic feedscoop (the square little giant kind, 4qt, should work), tamp it down, freeze it, un-feedscoop it, and let the cows go to town. Knowing cows, bet they would LOVE a nitre lick!

In terms of run, didn't collect today. Too much wind pretty much cancelled out the brief periods of sun. Only about 1 l out there max between all 6 trees.