We cooked for years without any kind of seal to separate the smoke- never noticed a difference in flavor, possibly a darker color? But for us color seems to change throughout the season anyway.
We used to cook in an old cast iron bathtub! (With a pan made to fit on the top, wood fire in the tub) then DH got fancy and bought a stove that happens to fit our pan from a guy that was going even fancier.
fun syrup story about our German shepherd, she likes to pick the paper thin ice from...
DH and kids just put our taps in too! We do anywhere from 30-75 trees mostly just for us and family and have more syrup sitting in the basement than I know what to do with! I kind of feel like tree tapping math is like chicken math....