I'll be boiling for the first time this year and I'm diving straight into the deep end....! I bought a house that already has a Leader Patriot with a 3X3 syrup pan and a 3X5 raised flue pan, continuous flow. I did a test boil with water this past weekend and think I have a decent handle on how to operate it, but I'm wondering about some of the process flow details. For example:

1) I have 100 CV taps on new gravity lines so I should get some decent sap volume. Based on the size of the evaporator, I'm guessing I need roughly 100gal to fill both pans. Obviously I'll need more to follow it as it starts to boil. As I sweeten the sap, if I don't have enough sap volume to finish syrup, can I leave the sweetened sap in the evaporator? I've seen some people say yes, some drain it. Anybody with a raised flue have experience just leaving the sap in and boiling it again during the next run? Ideally I'd hope that I'd just have some amount of sweetened sap in the evaporator during the whole season, chasing it with fresh sap during each new run. Easier than draining and cleaning each time but I don't know if that's feasible.

2) If I do drain the sweet and keep it cold, can I just add it back in to the next boil?

3) I'm wondering how you finish a boil, say at the end of the season. For example, at some point I won't have any more sap to feed into the evaporator but I'll still want to finish off the sap already in it to syrup. In this case, do I just chase the sweet with water until I've boiled down all the sap? Or do I just assume I'm going to lose some sap at the end of the season?

Thanks in advance, this is a great forum!