How much heat will the pan handle? (thoughts triggered by Force 5 stats)

[holey_bucket]

So... the Hurricane Force 5 firebox has a temperature of 2,000 degrees F. Will a pan that has solder or braze on it survive those temperatures? What kind of pan gets used on an evaporator like that? Can it ONLY survive by welding?

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

As long as you don't boil it dry, any pan should be ok.

[Haynes Forest Products]

If you ever tried to take a copper fitting apart that had a hint of water in it you would understand. Now if heat gets to the sides without liquid protection your screwed. I would also be very careful about going over the finish point of syrup. The cooling properties of the syrup verses candy are very differant when it comes to solderd pans. You have boiled water in a paper cup havent you?

[holey_bucket]

It seems like an auto draw off would be almost mandetory, in that case.

[Dave Y]

Holey bucket ,
What kind of pans are you wanting to use? I have a Force 5 and it boils no differnt than an oil fired rig. yes the internal temps are high but as long as you have sap in the pans you will be fine. How ever I recomend putting new pans on the Force 5. Lapierre pans have the best floats I have ever used. The are very relieable. If you have older pans and floats that you fuss with I would not recomend putting them on that arch. I know they are alot of money but they are worth it! And auto draw off is not mandtory.

[sugarmountain]

These new high output rigs probably could use bubblers when using high concentrate however due to the rapid niter build-up. I know a few guys that nearly trashed welded pans (dellaire) because of the vol. of heat and rapid niter concentration. I cant relate as my arch is old, just what i have heard in conversation.

[holey_bucket]

Holey bucket ,
What kind of pans are you wanting to use? I have a Force 5 and it boils no differnt than an oil fired rig. yes the internal temps are high but as long as you have sap in the pans you will be fine. How ever I recomend putting new pans on the Force 5. Lapierre pans have the best floats I have ever used. The are very relieable. If you have older pans and floats that you fuss with I would not recomend putting them on that arch. I know they are alot of money but they are worth it! And auto draw off is not mandtory.

Dave, what really got me thinking is... If I could ever purchase a F5, or even build something similar, would pans that I soldered together work? Based on the conversation thus far, it appears any pan would work, but as you stated, some features could really make a difference. I could see how a clunky float could be the reason a pan gets destroyed with that much BTU'S underneath.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I would think there are many times my firebox has exceed 2,000 degrees as I have seen stack temps of 1800 nine feet from the firebox. I don't think it would be possible to get a set of pans too hot as long as there is a proper amount of liquid.

[maple flats]

WVM, you will not see stack temperatures that high with your over fire air. I never had temps that high, mostly up to about 1200 at 4' up the base stack. Now with over fire air it has never hit 1000, and rarely 900. With this, the boil is faster and wood consumption down. I'm thinking you might have had secondary air entering at the rear cleanout and re igniting the unburnt gases to get readings that hot. You will now put much more of the heat to work under the pans. Excessive heat in the stack is wasted heat.

[Dave Y]

WVM, with your rig if your stack temps are 1800, your fire box temps will be very close to your fire box temps. The reason I say that is , your rig is designed to make as much heat as possible and chase it the length of the pans and up the stack. A high efficiency arch is designed to make as much heat as possible and keep it in the fire box and under the pans as long as possible. My arch has no natural draft and the hot air is recirculated and most of the heat is absorbed into the pans.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

WVM, you will not see stack temperatures that high with your over fire air. I never had temps that high, mostly up to about 1200 at 4' up the base stack. Now with over fire air it has never hit 1000, and rarely 900. With this, the boil is faster and wood consumption down. I'm thinking you might have had secondary air entering at the rear cleanout and re igniting the unburnt gases to get readings that hot. You will now put much more of the heat to work under the pans. Excessive heat in the stack is wasted heat.

Dave,

I don't have a cleanout at the rear of my inferno arch so I doubt there was any secondary air causing it. Be interesting to see how it works this year. I spent a lot of time and $$$ trying to make it work right and I didn't take any shortcuts, so hopefully it will be an improvement in every aspect. Not going to work as good as the newer high efficiency evaps as I don't have as large of a firebox, but arch is 32" high and square sided, so that is better than most of older evaps.

[Randy Brutkoski]

I cant wait to see what my new rig can do for evaporation rate.will know soon.

[RileySugarbush]

My forced draft setup also has stack temps of 1600 plus, measured with a probe type thermometer. This is with an airtight 2x6 with 200 CFM under grate only. I think what happens is with that large amount of air flow there is combustion all along the flue and up the stack, but at high velocity. With the addition of over fire air, it seems the total air flow is much reduced, so the combustion happens under the pans at low average velocity, to great advantage.

I added some over fire air a couple of years ago, but never got the balance right. I'll have to get back at it.

[Dave Y]

Randy,
you should get around 200 gph out of your Force 5. Did you get 2 or 3 syrup pans? they are designed to run with an ro and i see you have one. and the right size also. you should do quite well with your set up!

[Randy Brutkoski]

So with the concentrate i will be boiling at i should make between 30 to 34 gallons of syrup per hour. I chose to have 2 front pans instead of 3.

[Dave Y]

Randy,
That sounds about right. They are starting to recomend 3 syrup pans when boiling high consentrate.