Largest Evap. ever

[thenewguy]

Looking at some old sugaring pictures and cant believe some of the sizes of evaps back in the day, especially with stone/block arches and flat pans.. What is the largest evaporator you have ever seen?

[maplecrest]

are you asking about one evap or a group of them hooked togather to make alot of pan surface. early r/o. around here was not uncommon to walk into a sugar house and see 3 evaporators running one into another. the first a large flue pan 6x10 or two flues 4x7 on the arch running into another evap of all flues. to the third that is a large flat pan like 5x7 or 6x10 to draw off. took up alot of room and one guy full time firing the three. seen oil fired like that too

[ennismaple]

Vernon Wheeler runs 2 full size evaporators plus a finisher in series - see link below. Not sure what size each evaporator is but it's impressive to see!

http://www.wheelersmaple.com/gallery/sugarcamp.jpg

[maplecrest]

nice pic marty

[adk1]

yeah that is pretty neat, but I think I am more of a traditionalist and like to see the sap boil and steam up the place

[boondocker]

www.dolepondmapleproducts.com they have a good sized set up.

[gmcooper]

Thanks for the pic of Wheelers! First sugarhouse I've seen with pine(?) flooring and a couch!

[Farmboy]

Someone on here has a 6X20 I dont remeber who though. THey have another pretty big evaporator too.

[boondocker]

6x20? thats an evaporator!!!!! i hope its oil fired, if not i would hate to be feeding the wood to the beast:o

[PARKER MAPLE]

I found an old set up this year while hunting in a new piece of woods. I didnt have a tape measure but if I had to gess it was apprx 6x20, It had a 10' flue pan. an intermeadate pan, and front finish pan. It had been out there so long that theres an 12" tree growing through the middle now. awesome to find this. also about 1000' of 2" gal pipe and hundreds of buckets every where. I asume they boiled out side when they used it. I took a picture of it I will post it if i can find it. The company that built it was from Swanton,VT

Maple rookie

[lastwoodsman]

I stopped at Anderson's in WI last fall and he showed me the old sugar house with two old wood fired evaporators that were 8x 16. He said that the two of them together took a cord of wood an hour! I had never seen anything that big. I have fished smaller trout streams.
Woodsman

[Flat47]

Vernon Wheeler runs 2 full size evaporators plus a finisher in series - see link below. Not sure what size each evaporator is but it's impressive to see!

http://www.wheelersmaple.com/gallery/sugarcamp.jpg

I remember when Bascoms ran a set up like that.

[wglenmapler]

If my memory serves me right, Highland Sugarworks had one 16x30. It was wood fired and and one man loaded small railcars with wood while the otheremptied them into the arch. I remember the size as it was a big as my entire sugarhouse. They told me they made a barrell per hour. I don't remember any hoods or preheaters just a hug wood pile with 5' wood.
My how times have changed!

[shane hickey]

6x20? thats an evaporator!!!!! i hope its oil fired, if not i would hate to be feeding the wood to the beast:oNo neither one of my evaporators are oil fired, all wood. The 6x20 of mine has a big enough fire chamber to fit my 4 wheeler in. 1 guy all he does every night is throw wood, and shovel coal, It needs to be filled every 5 minutes. heres some pictures shane2274

2275

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[gmcooper]

Maple Rookie,
That sounds like an old Vermont Evaporator. My first one was 2x8, a bit smaller than what you found. My grandfather had a similar find hunting years ago in Maine. Huge evaporator way out in the woods abandoned. He said there were buckets everywhere. Sugarhouse was barely standing. He thought it looked like they finished the season and walked away. Turns out it was in the town my wife grew up in. Father in law remembered the place as a kid. He thought it was empty after WWII. Really cool how big some of those old operations were before tubing.

[mapleack]

Everyone should see Roy Corse's 6x20 leader in Whitingham Vt. He had it custom made to be able to feed and draw two different sap feeds at once. It allows him to keep bucket sap and tubing sap separate late in season, making two different grades at the same time on one rig. It's quite a maze of stainless piping!

[Homestead Maple]

The largest single evaporator set up I've seen is a 6 x 20

[nhmaple48]

I wondered when you said 6x20 if it was'nt a 3 pan VT.Have run those since I was a kid,50 yrs ago.From a 3x8 to a 5x16.Nice rig to run.

[Homestead Maple]

Yes, it would have been a Vermont 3-pan evaporator. The largest 2-pan evaporator I ever saw, was a 6x18.

[motowbrowne]

I bought some syrup from a neighbor of mine this year. They have 10,000 taps on vac. and two 9x16 oil-fired evaporators. I think they bought them before they got an RO, and i think they wish they had something smaller and a little more efficient, I think they burn 4 gallons of oil/gallon of syrup. These were the first evaporators that I have ever seen larger than a 30x8, and I was blown away. Is there any modern setup that would use something this big? I am just thinking that with advances in ROs, more efficient arches, steamaways, etc. there is not really a need for something that big, much less 2 somethings that big. Even if they wanted to downsize to something smaller, is a 9x16 something that anyone would even want? I'm glad I'm not trying to fuel something like that. I'll stick to wood and stay small for now.

[tuckermtn]

I think Jerry (802maple) uses a little over 1 gal of oil per gallon of syrup. Might be lower than that even.

[802maple]

Actually right around 4/10ths of a gallon of oil per gallon of syrup

[motowbrowne]

right, if you can make syrup on less than a gallon of oil per gallon of syrup, and with the cost of fuel going up and up, it seems like ditching those monsters seems like the way to go. Of course even getting those things out of there would be a huge job, and where would they go? I suppose you could put the pans on a more efficient arch, but someone would need a lot of taps for something like that.

[Thad Blaisdell]

I have a 6x14 and made syrup for .54 gallons per gallon of syrup. Next year there will be a few changes that should bring me down to .40 or less.

9x16? are you sure about the 9 part? Does it have two stacks? You say it burned oil..... how many guns?

[tuckermtn]

Jerry- thanks for the correction- couldn't remember if it was 1.4 or .4 - the second number is pretty impressive...

still working on my pellet arch design...think that will be how many pounds of pellets per gallon?

-Eric

[Thad Blaisdell]

Jstill working on my pellet arch design...think that will be how many pounds of pellets per gallon?

-Eric

Or pellets per pint. example... I can make it for 87ppp:lol:

[802maple]

Couldn't have done it without Mr. Lapierre (RO) You need to get it down to 2 pellets per pint. I am actually going on to bigger things with my pellet burning BBQ grill.

[500592]

Maple Rookie,
That sounds like an old Vermont Evaporator. My first one was 2x8, a bit smaller than what you found. My grandfather had a similar find hunting years ago in Maine. Huge evaporator way out in the woods abandoned. He said there were buckets everywhere. Sugarhouse was barely standing. He thought it looked like they finished the season and walked away. Turns out it was in the town my wife grew up in. Father in law remembered the place as a kid. He thought it was empty after WWII. Really cool how big some of those old operations were before tubing.

I know where there is one up Maine gmcooper what town was it in?

[Jim Schumacher]

I stopped at Anderson's in WI last fall and he showed me the old sugar house with two old wood fired evaporators that were 8x 16. He said that the two of them together took a cord of wood an hour! I had never seen anything that big. I have fished smaller trout streams.
Woodsman

Terry, is the old sugarhouse onsite near their main building? I would like to see it next time I'm there.

[markcasper]

The sugarhouse is on the main farm, right across the road from their packing facility.

The evaporators were 6x16, not 8x16. I believe the very late 1990's or possibly the year 2000 was the last year they boiled there. I seen one evaporator boiling one of those years. I think the other one had already been taken out and/or it was just the arch sitting next to the operational one.

I know they had a small finishing pan with steam heat to finish which was pretty cool.

[lastwoodsman]

It is on site across the road. Steve gave me a quick tour of the shed. It could have been 6 foot wide. After looking at my 2 x 6 it looked like the Mississippi. There were two of them, neither were operational any longer but they certainly are fun to look at and imagine what it must have been like in full operation!
I would not have wanted to make wood for them every year.
Woodsman