Filling barrels

[evanstj]

I am boiling now about 10 gallons of syrup off an hour since I got an RO. I am just wondering what I should be doing to filter and barrel it. I am wondering if I filter press it as it comes of the cooker into a 55 gallon barrel that by the time I have it full, about 5 hours that the barrel will not be hot enough(180 degrees). What would other people do?

[maple maniac65]

Canning tank, water jacketed heater, fill a barrel all at once

[Haynes Forest Products]

I have the same situation as far as not always filling a drum from start to finish. Now they do make smaller drums for your situation. If your doing it for your own use go with smaller drums. I hot pack into 55 gal drums and I will layer it. If you fill a drum thru the small hole and when done pull the filler pipe out and cap it your going to have sanitary conditions. If you only fill 1/2 way your still going to have sanitary conditions. If when you have enough to fill it the rest of the way the hot syrup is going into a sanitary drum of syrup and the new hot syrup will be just fine and will sanitize the empty space as it fills it up. The cold syrup in the bottom 1/2 of the tank isnt going to miraculously become a cesspool off moldy syrup. you will be fine.

I also have a bigger finisher 65 gallon so I could fill a drum at a time BUT I don't always have enough to fill it and I'm not going to let it all cool and then reheat just to get 20 more gallons. I pack what I have and layer it. Reheating leads to darker syrup and Im not losing money over a trivial notion that it will all spoil.

[TheMapleMoose]

Do you make out ok if you are short filling the drum one day, and finish it the next? Like putting 25 gallons in today and topping it off with 5 gallons from tomorrow?

[mellondome]

If you are only 5 gal short, cap it and start a new drum the next boil.

[to100]

What do you do when you there is loner time between boils like I had of 11 days between 3/11 and 3/23?

[maple flats]

I use my finisher. I pump the syrup into the finisher, then when I pump the last batch in to have enough to fill a barrel (my draw off tank holds about 25 gal) I light the burners on the finisher, bring it up to temperature, verify density, adjust as necessary, then I draw it into my mix tank, blend in the DE and then send it thru the filter press and then into the barrel. I can do 2 barrels worth at a time, but prefer 1 at a time, because then as I pump the warm to hot syrup from my draw off tank, the syrup in the finisher is being heated and then I don't need to reheat as much to get it to filtering temp. I like to filter at 205-210F, that way it gets to the barrel at or above 180F. I grade it using the overflow from my barrel filler attachment, when the barrel is full a second hose runs from the barrel into a SS pot I set on the barrel. I use that to grade the barrel. While I have never filled a barrel in stages, I know many do, and do it successfully.