After my 275 gallon tote froze stiff last year, I decided to go in-ground for sap storage. The 55-gallon barrels are food-grade (grape juice), but I decided to line them with food-grade 55-gallon drum liners. The liners are 4 mil. A roll of 50 was just over $80 through Amazon. $8 a year I can live with, especially knowing I'll never need to clean ... just pull the bags and toss each year. I've rigged up a bilge pump on the end of a plastic broom handle, attached to food-grade hose to pump them out on boil day. The "cone" covers were relatively cheap too ... about $7 a piece, and should eliminate water build up on the lids. Had someone with a mini-excavator come and dig me a trench, then I filled the bottom of it with 4" of pea gravel. I'm hoping this will keep my sap near freezing, without freezing until boil day. NW Wisconsin, ground is always filled with frost this time of year. Here's a picture from last fall:
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Thoughts? I'll pop a lid sometime this week, put in a liner and start dumping in sap. Still 2' + of snow in the woods, but I got 27 out of 50 trees tapped yesterday, until my heel strap on a snowshoe broke. I'll tap the rest when the snow goes down a little.