Leaving sap in the evaporator?

[NorthRiversapguy]

I am a new syrup hobbyist. I have a weekend place in Southern Vt. I built a sugar house this summer and bought a wood fired Leader 2 x 6 WSE evaporator. I will hang 100 buckets in a few weekends if mother nature cooperates. With luck, I can boil Fri, Sat, & Sun on two weekends. I have a few questions for you maple sages out there.

1) let's say I tap Friday morning, and collect late Friday. Do I have to boil this ~100 gallons Fri night, or can I store it and add it to the 100 I collect late Saturday and decrease the times I need to fire up the arch by one every weekend?

2) Since I have a wood burner, I'll need to slow down the fire before I run out of sap so as not to burn my pan, correct? My question is, can I leave that sap overnight and just use that as part of my sap for the next days burn or do I need to clean my pan every day (remember, I'm only evaporating 100-200 gallons a day.

3) On Sunday, after my last boil of the weekend and I have to return home in NY to go to work, again do I leave some sap in the pan until the next weekend? Or will it go bad as I expect? Or do I really need to do a water flush to at least somewhat clean to the pan since it will be sitting around another 5 days until the next weekend?

4) I know that sugar sand or niter(?) builds up and that I should reverse sides that the syrup draws off? Because of my somewhat low volume, can I avoid this hassle? It looks like with my evaporator it will be somewhat of a pain in the butt to switch sides, especially if it is full of liquid.

Thanks so much for any and all help!

100 taps
Leader 2 x6 WSE

[StayinLowTech]

In my opinion: 1) Yes you can save the sap until the next day, but most try to boil as soon as possible as this will make nicer syrup and to make way for the next run. You may get more than 1 gallon per tap on the good days. Also firing the evaporator is not something to be avoided, its fun. 2) Yes stop firing the evaporator long before you run out of sap - the fire brick holds a lot of heat. Also most surgarmakers have a 5 gallon pail of clean water waiting at all times beside the evaporator to pour in in the event of running too low on sap - do not leave the evaporator unattended or with someone who is inattentive. It will be fine to leave the sap in the evap between boils during the weekend - with your quantities you will not need to clean during your weekend, in fact in the beginning you will have a hard time having enough sap to make syrup. You will at first just be "sweetening" the pan - everything in the evap. has to be concentrated down before you draw off syrup. 3) Firstly sounds like you have your priorities screwed up with that "to go to work" stuff. You can leave the pans full IF the weather forecast says they will not freeze while you are gone - because the sap in there has been boiled, it is sterilized and should not go bad but potentially bust seams if frozen. On the other hand, your buckets will burst if allowed to freeze hard and if you get sap on monday, it would most likely be thrown out on Friday. 4) Its not very critical with your quantity, but you also have an opportunity to change easily at the beginning of each weekend. When your evap. is shut down, the natural flow from sap to syrup which you established by boiling is stopped and then the less concentrated is somewhat mixed with the more concentrated, so you have to reestablish that gradient and flow in the proper order when you start it up again (just like if you reversed flow to reduce niter).
Overall, I hope we have lots of runs on the weekend for you - it doesn't always happen that way. How about finding an old timer or responsible, knowledgeable neighbor to run the operation during the week - or use up some vacation time - good luck. StayinLowTech

[NorthRiversapguy]

Thanks! This helps a lot (and yes, if I can, I will sneak up on a weekday!
BTW, are you tapping yet? Traditionally where I am, it's usually early March but I notice that even later this week there are several days where it looks like the sap might be flowing.

[vtwoody]

ditto the previous comments...what u did not ask about but was mentioned was sap collection during the week in your buckets....on a good day, your buckets could fill in one day. Not only will you lose some onto the ground , but that sap will be sitting in those buckets all week...if it is warm than you'll get some bacteria brewing that will, at best , impact the quality of your syrup, at worse, be unusable....DEFINITELY try to connect with some in the neighborhood that is interested in "helping out" during the week. Don't know about the flexibility of your job but, with the short season of a couple weeks, it might be doable for you to pop up for a midweek boil if the sap is running.....other option is to sell your "midweek " sap to someone willing to collect it....or give free to another sugarmaker in exchange for future favors.....

Have fun!!!!

[StayinLowTech]

No I am not tapping yet but will around the last week in Feb. or First of March. That's contingent on the weather of course so I keep a good eye on the long range forecast and get everything else ready, plus my bush is on the north side of the hill and so it starts a little later than the guys on the south side. Also - about the 3 question I forgot to mention that once you have boiled your sap down, whats left in the evap. due to it's sugar content will not freeze at 32, but lower than that so you have more leeway in leaving it in over the week - also you could drain it into containers if you are worried about the evap and then pour it back in - it is more the warmer temps that ruin the sap.