HEBRON, N.Y.—It’s nasty and stinks but it works.

The old school way of pan cleaning after a season—letting last-day-of-the-season sap soak in the pans for five or six months—has been a proven method.

This season at The Maple News sugarhouse in Hebron, N.Y. we tried it for the second year in a row. We have had success after much smell enduring.

In April, we filled our pans and Steam-Away with skunked sap to the brim.  Through the spring, a bubbling, green, oozing crust grew like a science experiment.

By early July it transformed into an almost pleasant, brown cidery vinegar.

The sap surface level has dropped a bit, already revealing a shiny sheen on the channel dividers.

We will let the pans soak all the way until September.  We did the same thing last year.

The front pans drained out easily and the crust on the side of the pans mostly just wiped away.  The drained-out sap had the same kind of smell of apple cider that’s sat in the fridge too long.  

It was so pure and useful we left it in a pail and soaked our scoops and other small equipment in it.

Not even a spec of nitre was left on the pans, and that was after the worst sugar sand year we've ever had.

Letting the last-day-of-season sap ferment in pans until September is exactly the right thing to do, according veteran sugarmakers like Keith Rennie in Athelstan, Que.

“I’m an old producer.  I'm 86 years old,” Rennie said. “You leave it until September and when you clean it in September it cleans up perfectly and that’s the way to go.” 

Sugarmaker Terry Hoover up in Atwood, Ont. says if there's a crust on the sides of the front pan it should be wetted down, scrubbed and left to dry overnight.

“Sometimes that crust dries and peels off like when you get a sunburn,” he said.

Other sugarmakers say that letting sap sit all the way to autumn might be overkill.

“I learned from other sugarmakers and proved to myself that letting sap ferment in the pans is the best pan cleaner, but three weeks of fermenting is a good time frame, not two months,” said Jacob A. Hershberger of North Lawrence, N.Y.