Maple sap storage recommendations

I just set our 15 taps and we seem to be having moderate to good flow here in Oswego county NY. We have been using a plastic garbage can for the past few years to save up sap till we have enough to be worth boiling. The can is normally used to store sacks of dry beans and when we use it for sap the beans have to go into the oat and flour cans. I think it is time to buy a dedicated sap container, and I am wondering if plastic or metal is better. I know the ideal setup would be one of those plastic portable water tanks but I am looking for something cheaper. The advantage of plastic is that it wouldn't rust, but I am wondering if the chemicals outgassing from a new can would make the syrup taste bad or cause me to lose my few remaining brain cells. On the other hand I don't know what goes into a galvanized can other than zinc, so I don't know how that would work. Any advice will be very much appreciated.
Zach

Can you find a few half way decent milk cans on an auction or something?

Can you find a heavy plastic garbage bag to use as a liner? Or a sheet of poly pushed into the container.

I have a very nice Cream Can for sale, let me know if you have an email for contact.

stainless steel milk cans run about 100 each at auction. a local guy in the area uses food grade 275 gallon totes (Plastic tank with an alumuinum frame around it) gets the ones that have only used to store butter flavored oils. 75 each with outlet valve.

I have 28ea 1900 gallon removable-head insulated tanks that have never seen anything but water. But I suppose they are too big for you.

It is good to find a container that you can bank snow against.

Many producers use SS diary tanks. Many also use caged 275 gallon totes.

Go to the link below to get ideas on sap storage or anything maple. The site also has a classified section.
Click me

I've used multiple 5-gallon buckets w/lids that were previously used as food containers. If you ask around at any cafeteria or food service place, you can find them for next to nothing (or nothing). You just have to rinse them out pretty good first. Especially the ones that have "pickles" written on them!

Store sap with the cleanliness,temps and material you would handle raw milk for drinking.

I'd say buy more garbage cans. They are cheap and come with lids. Wash with a clorox solution. Use them for tractor shows in the summer. Shows never have enough cans.

Plastic

An old SS milk tank would be ideal. You didn't say how much sap? A 500 gal tank a little bit of sap is kind of over-doing it. I use food grade 55 gal plastic drums I bought from Bascoms in NH, they sell a lot of them, I think they were $15 ea. at the time. Anything like that, or something suitable for drinking water would do. Some use galv. stock tanks too.

Zack;
You shouldn"t store sap for more than 48 hrs. Your syrup will be dark an have a strong taste.
My grandad, father and his brothers ran a sugarbush for 97 consecutive years. It was my dads dream to cross the century mark, but our 40 acre bush is on flat limestone bedrock, and a 1500 plus, bucket operation. A lot of work! This spring would have been 101 years if operating. I have lots of memories and stories about working
in the sugarbush, from when I was about 6 years old, 58 years ago.
Sorry I got off your question. If you can find a small SS bulk milk tank on a non operating farm, that would be ideal. Aroung here, our still operating maple producers utilize gravity piplines with large Milk tanks set along roadways and pump the sap into older straight frame milk tankers or fuel tankers to transport the sap to their modern "sap houses"Times have changed!

Come on, you want to eat this and give it to your kids for their pancakes--either get a food grade barrel at your farm supply store or take the other suggestion and get the four and five gallon food grade pails from your nearest bakery or deli. They work great and won't cost you hardly anything. I use both options to save enough to begin evaporating. Yes, evaporating. I use a Nesco roaster and fill it three times a day for about a week until it gets near done--pay close attention then like any other boiling process. In the Nesco it won't boil but it will evaporate five or six gallons of sap every 24 hours. Works great and I don't have to be with it all the time. Slow and steady. Oh, and clean the pan good (use a SS or granite pan, not the painted ones) between batches to keep it as light as possible. I hold the sap for a week to 10 days in a cool garage and it hasn't been a problem. Food grade plactic, not some of the other stuff that you don't know what it is made of and what will leach out of it, etc. If it is a little costly at first, sell a few pints to recoup the cost, it sure is easy to do.

whatever you decide to get make sure it is food grade and very clean as your sap will take on the smell and possibly flavor of anything that was in the container previously. like pickle buckets and cola kegs, ect. you need to watch out for the plastic garbage pails as some of them are made from recycled plastics, which who knows what the previous stuff held like motor oil, tranny fluid ect. the best bet is stainless expensive, or food grade plastics. i have a couple of 275 gal totes that held a brown sugar molassas mix and some of the blue food grade barrels that i use for sap collecting, along w/ a couple of those white tanks you can get from tsc and other ag places they're fairly cheap for smaller ones. i would def boil your sap asap as it will spoil in warmer temps. and the longer it sits the darker your syrup will be,my personal preference is the dark. i notice in your sig you're from oswego county, ny? there was a guy on the syracuse craigs list w/ the food totes for sale for a good deal they came from the brewery in b'ville, i picked up 1 from him as my wifes family is in that area. he had a bunch of them and he seperated them by the way they smelled. i'm sure if you do a search his ad would come up. good luck.

Nothing like the taste of SOURED Maple sugar water..!!!!

How do you spell Spoiled..??

Soured....!!

What ya got for an evaporator. Is it to big for your operation? I would think even one days run is a job with an open fire or stove.