My uncle has been making maple syrup the old fashion way for years. He always uses galvanized tubs to boil the sap in. Is'nt that unhealthy?

-- Paul Halverson (teweigen@yahoo.com), April 04, 2002

Answers

I would think so. It's an old hold-over. Give him some large stainless as a present! My brother gave me galvanized buckets with PAINT on the inside of them. The paint was peeling off and he said to just strain the sap. He'd been using them for YEARS. Yikes. Make interesting flower pots...

-- Gailann Schrader (gtschrader@aol.com), April 04, 2002.

old school - new school ,, you CAN, they have been doing it for years,, BUT, stainless is much better because no galvanic corrosion gets loose in the sap, though it IS a minute amount

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), April 04, 2002.

The only question is the solder!! The older pans use lead in the solder which can leach into whatever your cooking!! But the old sap buckets are soldered too!!! There are alot of people who've eaten alot of homemade syrup and lived to be very old....

-- Suzanne (weir@frontiernet.net), April 04, 2002.