Good Morning,

New to the forum, first post and have been eagerly setting up my new 50-tap (3/16 Tubing) Maple Empire for Spring 2021. I have gleaned a ton of information from this forum and really appreciate all the effort and trial and error people have done before me. I'll be at a reduced workload during the spring season due to an impending ACL surgery in a few weeks so I want to get everything into motion so that I can weekend boil when it comes time.

Here is my big question. I'm building an oil tank evaporator and welding it up to accept a 2x4 pan. It is in my future to get a CF 2x4 from a reputable dealer, but I just found a 2x4 pan that is made from 16 gauge (I know its pretty thick) 304 stainless, which is made in China. It is ENTIRELY my assumption to be upgrading to a CF pan the year after next BUT could this pan potentially work as a batch pan for weekend boils or am I completely crazy?

It's $75, yes the temp port is probably too high up on the side wall, and it is thicker than it probably should be, but for $75 as a cheap insurance plan to have a backup pan for the future, should it work? Has anyone had experience with them? Is there a worry that welds may leach other bad materials into the syrup? I plan on getting it close to syrup then boiling it off on a turkey fryer for a final product.

Here is the link to the product.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Maple-Syrup...1&isGTR=1#shId

Thoughts are appreciated, and so aren't maple jokes that I can utilize in the future on unsuspecting shack visitors.

Regards,

Tucker Adams