Vinegar for pan cleaning

[steve J]

I have always poured several gallons of vinegar into my pan to clean it. Recently I have seen some say they use vinegar and water to clean pan. Can you tell me what ratio your using? As it appears I could save some money.

[mol1jb]

I have had good results with a 50/50 ratio. If it is really caked on I let it soak over night.

[maple flats]

In my syrup pan which is 3' x 3', I just use 1 gal of white vinegar. Then I heat it to luke warm using a weed burner torch on the bottom, from underneath. Then I let it sit for 20-30 minutes, followed by using a brush to see if it has loosened. If yes, brush, then flush and triple rinse. If no, I reheat and wait again. If 2 heat cycles don't do it, I let it set over night, then by morning it has always been loose. The only water I use is when I flush the sweet into my draw tank. I use as little as possible because when I pump that tank back into the pan after it is clean I'll need to evaporate it away. To chase the sweet, I likely use 2-3 qts of hot permeate and then I have a squeegee to move it thru the channels. Then I pour in the 1 gal of vinegar. After the bottom is clean, I address the sides of the partitions, while the vinegar is still in the pan, since that is up on the sides it comes off easier. Then it's all dumped, and flushed out completely using hot permeate (I have a tankless heater, with a potable water hose on it, I just use a spray nozzle and make sure I get all surfaces 3x. I buy my vinegar at Walmart for $2.50 a gal. or at Family Dollar for about the same.

[sap retreiver]

I think I used 4 gallons in my 2x6 completely filled. Put some heat under it till it got up to 140 and let it sit for a day or so. Came out pissah

[Scm]

..........

[VT_K9]

We have been using vinegar for about 4 years now. We clean several times during the season using the 2x6...about every 15 gallons. We use about 4 gallons of vinegar in the front pan and then add water to bring the fluid above the sugar line. Then we bring it to a rolling boil for about 10-15 minutes. We usually use about 2 gallons in the back pan with water to the sugar line. This system has worked great. We will rinse out anything loose prior to adding the vinegar. We draw the front pan off into a 5 gallon bucket to re-use the next time and do this throughout the season. We will flush the pans after with water (permeate if we have extra) and then fill and bring that to a boil. Then a quick rinse while draining.

I don't recall who, but one of the larger posters on here, mentioned using a flat piece of copper for scraping. We are going to give that a try at the end of the year if we need to scrape. Normally a plastic brush will get everything except maybe a couple 1/2" x 1/2" areas and we have used a green pad in the those areas. I'm interested to see how the copper works.

Mike

[minehart gap]

I just got finished with end of year cleaning and only use white vinegar. The mixture that I used was filled my pans with water then added 1 gallon of white vinegar, brought to a good boil, waited for it to cool to the point that I could put my hands in it but it was still hot and wiped everything clean. The only place that I needed elbow grease was in the corners and edges other than that everything just wiped clean.

I do have to add a disclaimer, I clean my pans every other week during the season(and sometimes more often) so they are never too dirty.

[maple flats]

I don't use vinegar in my flue pan, I have a flue pan washer for that and it just uses permeate. On my next cleaning on my front pan I might try minehart's method to compare how it does.

[MT Pockets Producer]

We made a copper scraper this season based on the info VT_K9 mentioned. The only concern is why we didn't do it years ago. Works very well with no adverse affects to the pan. We were a bit nervous to make that first scrape but it has since saved us a lot of time and elbow grease.

[Sugarmaker]

Soaking pans now. 3 x 10 pans full of water with 6 gallons of walmart white vinegar added. also steamaway is full of water and 3 gallons of vinegar too. bring to simmer several times and wait for it to work. My pans have a lot of thin scale and brown color.
Regards,
Chris