Galvanized coated tanks/etc

[Brian]

This is interesting https://www.ontario.ca/page/preventi...maple-products

[ennismaple]

This is interesting https://www.ontario.ca/page/preventi...maple-products

Thanks for sharing Brian. I started to type a response the other night with references to Ontario's laws (O.Reg. 119/11 https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/110119 , which I believe is where the OP is located), but chose not to. The simple matter is: whether you sell 10L or 100,000L of syrup a year the same laws apply to all maple producers. Here in Ontario we are fortunate to NOT have mandatory Food Safety training nor registration of our production activities - but that doesn't mean we shouldn't abide by best practices.

From my own experience - every time I've tried to save a few dollars on equipment I've ended up regretting it and ultimately replaced that piece with what I'd originally thought was "too expensive". Is food safety work? Definitely. But the reason why it's important is looking across the table with wide eyes as Mom or Dad pours fresh, local maple syrup on their pancakes.

[Brian]

I believe this is a good topic on here and I know it was a hard one but nothing stays the same. About 35-40 years ago there was a farmer that used the same pump to pump out the barn when it got flooded from a broken water bowl and it was also his sap pump. This farmer said there is nothing wrong with that, it gets boiled any way. These are the things that made syrup have all that flavor years ago LoL. My father still talks about before they had power and used a gas vacuum pump to milk the cows. They used the battery from the old truck to run the fencer. He said when power came thuough alot of farmers hooked 110 ac power to the fence with out a fencer and there would be dead animal on the edges of the pastures that got zapped. He said no cows died that he heard of. He said the guys came through and dug the holes for the power poles about a month or so before the poles were put in. The families had to watch the little kids that they didn't fall in the holes and drown after a hard rain. A lot has happend in his life time. He said alot of gas engines broke or split before there was antifreeze.

[DrTimPerkins]

Sorry...late to this conversation. Galvanizing pre-1994 contains lead. Sap is acidic and leaches lead into the sap. Boiling concentrates the lead in the syrup.

In answer to your specific questions:

1. There are no epoxy coatings I know of that can be applied by the end-user that are entirely food-grade (you have to read the info quite carefully as they can be very "unclear" as to this fact). Last time I looked was maybe 10 yrs ago.
2. Lining would be fine if you can find something suitable. When the lead issue first started there were companies making liners, but that went away pretty quickly. I can tell you the mice loved the linings, so they tended not to last real long.

[DrTimPerkins]

Can anyone, really ANYONE link me to a research article that connects Lead content in finished maple products to galvanized pots/pans/storage? I'll really take anything that's been done in the last 30 years.

Having done much of that research in the mid-late 1990s, I can tell you that it wasn't something that was made largely available in print for a variety of reasons. The outreach efforts were instead targeted directly towards producers in presentations. I can tell you that older galvanized materials contain lead, and that very often those materials were also soldered with lead-based solder.

https://mapleresearch.org/pub/gmp_for_lead-2/

Interestingly, galvanizing (zinc) has (to my knowledge) never been an approved material itself. Different story altogether, but you don't see a lot of maple equipment being made that uses galvanizing any longer. Some cans of worms are best left unopened.

[johnallin]

Having done much of that research in the mid-late 1990s, I can tell you that it wasn't something that was made largely available in print for a variety of reasons. The outreach efforts were instead targeted directly towards producers in presentations. I can tell you that older galvanized materials contain lead, and that very often those materials were also soldered with lead-based solder.

https://mapleresearch.org/pub/gmp_for_lead-2/

Interestingly, galvanizing (zinc) has (to my knowledge) never been an approved material itself. Different story altogether, but you don't see a lot of maple equipment being made that uses galvanizing any longer. Some cans of worms are best left unopened.

Thank you Dr. Tim - and good to see you back...getting a little crazy around here.