Why the need for a walk in cooler.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Now I know I only speak from MY experience and I see people talk about cooling their finished product, Syrup and syrup only. I'm not talking about confections or raw sap. I'm not talking under density syrup or concentrate. I'm talking finished to density, hot packed syrup in retail bottles or wholesale drums.

How many people put in a cooler for storage? I will tell you that once its hot packed I keep it the coolest place I have but I dont concern myself with walk ion cooler or the fridge. I know about 10 producers and not one has a cooler. I have 3 year old syrup in my basement that is clear and as far as I'm concerned as good as the day I bottled it.

I see pictures of the Federation reserve building in Canada and it doesn't look all that cold to me. I cant fins the cooler in my wholesale buyers building.

[maple flats]

I keep my bottled syrup in chest freezers, in fact one is a freezer held at about 20F the other is a cooler held at about 35F.
I will be building a walk in cooler next year to hold my barrels. It will be based on using a "cool Bot" to operate an air conditioner. While I have not had spoilage without, I sometimes don't like packing a whole barrel of one grade at the same time. With the walk in cooler, I will feel far better about using half of a barrel and holding the other half in the cooler. As it is, I sometimes do half but then I fear loss and don't hold the other half for more that 3-4 days before bottling that too. If you do enough retail to pack a barrel or 2 into retail containers all at the same time you may not need or benefit from a walk in cooler. I have great sales from about Oct.-Dec. but in much of the rest of the year, especially in the hot months, my sales are slower.
I do not have 3 year old stock, I did have 3 barrels left from 2017 season just after the 2018 season, but they are gone, I now only have barrels with 2018 syrup in them, and the way sales are going I may be out by next Jan.

[jmayerl]

Yeah, I see no reason for cooled storage. I make 400+ gallons a year and pack into glass retail, 5 gallon stainless, and 30 gallon epoxy lined. The barrels are kept in the sugarhouse which is not climate controlled and have kept barrels for 18 months. I also buy wholesale from a producer that makes 40,000 gallons a year; guess what, no cooler there as well.

Any syrup that is filtered, hot packed into clean containers, and proper density is SHELF STABLE.

[karl evans]

I do believe in my neck of the woods, syrup maintains a better flavor under cold storage. I agree not a must to have, but also you need to consider the climate of different regions. This has been a hot summer, but the unusual thing about this summer has been nitetime lows have been upper 60's & low 70's all summer. This has caused the building temperatures to remain real high. The difference from 70 ,to 80 degrees is a big deal when keeping syrup a long time. Just my experience.

[nam elpam]

Most often a 40 gal. barrel in my opinion is not technicly hot packed it may be put in hot but most times in multiple batches and may fall below the 180 deg target and I as well feel the quality is kept better cold and the piece of mind that several hundred gallons as well as dollars is not going to be compromised.

[Tweegs]

We suffer from small-producer-itis.
With a tap count this low, we’ll only pull 8-12 gallons off the evaporator on a typical run.
It’s not unusual for us to start drawing darker and lighten up as the day wears on, so we keep a close eye on the grade coming off and keep it separated.
This means we’ll finish the day with some partially filled totes.
Back at the house, we’ll “save up” until we have enough of a particular grade to hot pack in 5 gallon containers. Any overflow is packaged retail.
Once hot packed, we don’t worry about refrigeration. It’s that loose syrup in the interim that needs to be kept cool.
This is how we play it during the season.

Come mid-August, we’ve usually sold nearly all the syrup we produced and it’s time to start buying bulk.
Of course, the more you buy, the better the price (even if it’s just in transportation costs).

In our case, being small, we run into a couple of problems:
First, we don’t have the equipment capacity to plow through and package a barrel in a day and second, we just can’t predict the market.
We might sell out of quarts one day and the next day we’ll sell out of pints. Or maybe it’s a particular grade, or value added product, or…
So we tend to bottle every week and head to market with a load-out of X number of this and that.

We found that if we get too far ahead of ourselves and have to crack open a gallon or two to bust down into quarts and pints, we’ve lost the cap, labeling and a little syrup at a minimum.

What we can predict, at least with our current plan, is that we are going to have open barrels for a few weeks at a time that will need to be kept cool.
Thus the need for a walk-in.

[Haynes Forest Products]

OK better safe than sorry is a moto everyone can get behind..........to a point. I have a 1/2 gallon of syrup that I use to fill the table container for Sunday breakfast. I don't refrigerate the opened 1/2 gallon after its open. I pour off a pint and reseal ASAP. I have never had mold or deterioration of the product. I also don't stick my fingers in the container or lick the top off.

Sanitation is always the best policy how you handle the container that you open and draw from. I would also say Do what works for you and makes you comfortable with the outcome. I just don't know the wisdom of having a walk in cooler that takes up most of your sap shack.

[PerryFamily]

Who cares if someone wants s cooler or not. To each their own. They are not right or wrong but if it works for you go for it

[Haynes Forest Products]

Perry were not picking on anyone were having a discussion. I just never knew there was such a need for one. Every thread is an open discussion and we all learn from the discussion that's all. This thread was not directed at anyone just a question.

[maple flats]

I will not build it onto the sugar house, it will be built on the side of my shop, which will be about 120' away. Having it attached to the sugarhouse would be real handy, but my layout would add too much to the cost of building it. I actually priced one up as an adjacent "cellar" attached to and accessible from the sugarhouse with supply storage above but the cost was much higher than having it beside the shop.