Hood & Coupla ??????????????

[Brad W Wi]

Still getting some ideas for late next spring to build my sugar shack. If I put a hood a foot or two over my evaporator do I still need a coupla? Also if I just just use a coupla will the inside of the shack get sticky? I'm sure these sound like dumb questions to some but I've only done it outside and have never been in a shack before.CAUTION: Answering these questions will leed to more. Thank you.

[brookledge]

As long as your stack taking out the steam is adequate it should be ok. The steam is only condensed water so it does not make everything it touches sticky. If you are going to build a hood or buy one you might want to consider a pre-heater in the hood. In this case the hood needs to set on the pan. I don't know if you have a flue pan and a syrup pan or just a flat pan. If you have a flue pan and add a pre-heater it will raise your efficiency alot.
Most of the set ups will have the hood for the flue pan right on the pan and will suspend the other hood up in the air over the syrup pan so that you can watch whats going on.
You will find that you can boil faster in a building than outside because the wind won't be blowing on the pans and arch.
Keith

[katmike]

Now I have questions about hoods/pre-heaters.

I have a Leader Half Pint and a flat pan in a detached garage and the garage is 24' x 24' of conventional constuction (no copula). I am not venting the steam in any way but I know that I should.

I am trying to understand the pre-heater concept. What is a preheater... is it something that fits inside the hood? What is it made of? Would it work with my setup (flat pan)? I was originally assuming that if I added a hood it would vent up through the ceiling in a 6" or 8" stack...would this be adequate without a pre-heater? If there is something better I'd like ideas.... Thanks.

[forester1]

The hood and preheater are separate things that go together. The preheater is usually a set of copper pipes that the sap is piped through on it's way to the pan. As the pipes are inside the hood it is preheated, so it saves fuel. The hood sits above the pan and works like a steam kettle, capturing the steam and sending it up the stack. On bigger evaporators, they fit tight on the flue pan. Some of the steam condenses on the side and is captured as it drains down the sides in a trough so it is a source of hot water. The hood on the syrup pan sits a foot or more above so you can see what is going on. On a half pint you probably want to put the hood above a ways so you can see what is going on. You can still make a preheater but it wouldn't get quite as hot under the hood. Maybe you could wrap the sap feed pipe around the stove pipe? Some others may have experience preheating with this unit.

[mountainvan]

If you have a small tank above the pan you can have a section of copper or stainless pipe laying inside the pan covered by the boiling sap. Put a valve on the end so you can control the sap flow into the pan. I had the valve above the sap so I could see how much sap was coming in. Usually I had very hot sap coming out of the valve. If you copper make sure you use lead free solder and clean the joint well. Flux and maple sap don't mix.

[Daren]

I am going to be making a copper pipe "preheater" soon and the last post caught my attention. Flux and sap don't mix? I had figured that since my home drinking water runs through this stuff that it could not possibly hurt the quality of the sap. Is that wrong? I had figured that as long as the solder took, the flux would have burned off. If you did a test boil with tap water through the preheater setup, shouldn't the flux residue be eliminated? NOW I'M ALL STRESSED OUT! :cry:

[mapleman3]

test boil will do the trick!

[mountainvan]

sorry to stress you out ! all I was saying is that you should clean the joints well so that any flux residue does not get into your first boil. I use boiling water to remove the residue.

[Sugarmaker]

I boiled for many years with no hoods and the steam was usually 3 feet off the floor and it was like working in a rain forest, condensate dripping off the ceiling.
So when we built our new sugarhouse I opted for a full steam hood on the back pan and a partial steam hood on the front pan.
The hood on the rear did allow me to build a preheater using copper tubing and the sap is about 200 deg F entering the boiling pan. I patterened the preheater after the Leader parallel flow. Keep in mind that damper in the rear hood is recommended to trap steam for best performance of a preheater. and the hood doesn't have to fit very tight, since the draft of the steam going up the pipe keeps steam in the hood.

On one of the smaller half pint rigs steam may not be as much of a problem but on a 3 x 10, about 90 gallons of water per hour goes up the steam stacks.

The hoods remove 95% of the steam from the room and the glasses dont get fogged up and folks can visit with out umbrellas.

I would recommend the hoods if you can. If not try to remove as much steam as possible to be able to navigate around the evaporator.
Stumbling around in the fog can be dangerous too.

Chris C.

[markcasper]

Still getting some ideas for late next spring to build my sugar shack. If I put a hood a foot or two over my evaporator do I still need a coupla? Also if I just just use a coupla will the inside of the shack get sticky? I'm sure these sound like dumb questions to some but I've only done it outside and have never been in a shack before.CAUTION: Answering these questions will leed to more. Thank you.


You do not need a cupola on your sugarhouse. The folks out east think it looks pretty, but they are another set of leaks to contend with, not to mention added expense. I have always ran my evaporator (4X12) with both hoods down on the pans snug. I have a light (protected) in the top of both hoods. I have 4 sliding inspection doors in each hood and there are always 2 of them open on the front pan and rarely does any steam ever come out. I don't want that darn hood subject to any winds or someone hitting there head on a swinging item such as this. If I must need the hood removed fast, I do have it mounted to a rope and pulley system, which would allow me to raise it up and out of the way. I have NEVER had to raise it until the end of the season.

[markcasper]

Still getting some ideas for late next spring to build my sugar shack. If I put a hood a foot or two over my evaporator do I still need a coupla? Also if I just just use a coupla will the inside of the shack get sticky? I'm sure these sound like dumb questions to some but I've only done it outside and have never been in a shack before.CAUTION: Answering these questions will leed to more. Thank you.


You do not need a cupola on your sugarhouse. The folks out east think it looks pretty, but they are another set of leaks to contend with, not to mention added expense. I have always ran my evaporator (4X12) with both hoods down on the pans snug. I have a light (protected) in the top of both hoods. I have 4 sliding inspection doors in each hood and there are always 2 of them open on the front pan and rarely does any steam ever come out. I don't want that darn hood subject to any winds or someone hitting there head on a swinging item such as this. If I must need the hood removed fast, I do have it mounted to a rope and pulley system, which would allow me to raise it up and out of the way. I have NEVER had to raise it until the end of the season.