maxant bottling tank. (first time) use and tips?

[adamant]

going to use my bottling tank for the first time this weekend ! i have the 600 series unit with the no drip valve.. and pointers for a first time user?
ant

[sqkcrk]

Make sure you have the water in thew tank to the proper heigth according to the glass tube. It should be close to the same heigth as the filler hole.

You will be able to get the gate to work at relatively low temperatures, but you may want to let the tank get up to a temperature higher than 100 degrees so what jars you fill don't crystalize too soon. It will take time to crystalize of course, but, unless you want crystalized honey you are going to have to heat the tank full of honey up to 140 degrees.

Even if you set the dial to 100 degrees, or whatever temp you desire, keep an eye on things until you know from experience that it isn't going to go any higher. Then you can set it and go do something else for a while. Especially when you have some idea how long it moght take for the tank to reach temperature.

How are you going to strain your honey? Are you going to pour your honey into this tank, warm it up, strain it, clean the tank, and refill it? That's what I did for many years until I got another tank. Seems like a lot to do perhaps, but w/out needing to do a lot of bottling it works well and is doable. I always rinsed mine out w/ hot water and scraped the wax buildup from inside the tank w/ a plastic card. I don't know what others use.

Enjoy your quality bottler.

[adamant]

Thanks for the tip. As for straining, I have "in bucket" 600 micron filters that I will use Coming out of my extractor