Ideal Flue temp?

[Maple1]

I introduced air under this year to my evaporator and I started boiling last night. Trial and error with the air.

1. Flue temp?
2. Installed a reo-stat to adjust air in but it appears to choke the flame down. Any suggestions?

Thanks

[Jec]

You might need more wood. Forced draft needs a good amount of wood to do its job. I never saw mine choke out because of too much air. Sometimes I want more air! Try more wood.

[Southtowns27]

Is your blower too small? Maybe it can't supply enough air. Shut the blower off and open your draft door all the way. If the fire picks up, the blower is too small.

[Maple1]

I will give it a try with a diiferent blower. What about the flue temp? If we read 550 at the flue, inside the firebox I would assume its around 600 or more. Is there a magical number that we should shoot for? Or what ever gets the best rapid boil?

[3rdgen.maple]

I could really care less what the stack temp is. Its what is happening in the pans that matter to me the most. If you got a good boil going then dont get all caught up in stack temps. If you dont then time to play some more. There are alot of vairable in how an evaporator fires. Stack height, stack diameter, size of wood, kind of wood, how you fire your rig, gap between flues and arch, insulation, cfm's of your blower etc. etc.

[Southtowns27]

I forgot to mention, if your arch does not have airtight doors, you should be able to get the flame to shoot out of all the cracks around the doors. Turn the blower speed up until you see this happen, then slowly slow it down until no more smoke/flame is coming out the doors. This is the correct speed to run at. It will be slightly different everyday.
If you have the blower at full speed and you don't get smoke/flame out the door cracks, the blower is too small. Get a bigger one and try again.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

I forgot to mention, if your arch does not have airtight doors, you should be able to get the flame to shoot out of all the cracks around the doors. Turn the blower speed up until you see this happen, then slowly slow it down until no more smoke/flame is coming out the doors. This is the correct speed to run at. It will be slightly different everyday.
If you have the blower at full speed and you don't get smoke/flame out the door cracks, the blower is too small. Get a bigger one and try again.

Did this, added second fan on top of first fan and cranked them both. Added some hard hack wood about 4" dia. and made my straight VV grates into U VV grates so now I can add more wood:lol:
I ended up with smoke n sparks blowing out of all cracks n holes so I did limit air down until it stopped coming out just like southtown said.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I stand to be criticized but I get the best evaporation when I run stack temps of 1500 to 1700 degrees and I fire every 10 minutes.

[OneLegJohn]

Brandon - holy crap. I can just barely get to 975F. Is my blower too small? I don't have and airtight arch, so I'm probably limited.

[TapME]

I stand to be criticized but I get the best evaporation when I run stack temps of 1500 to 1700 degrees and I fire every 10 minutes.

Brandon, do you use a inserted temp gauge or a exterior mounted one?

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I run a interior gauge that Jon(Tapper) put me onto a few years ago. It is a Condar Flueguard and here is link:

http://www.condar.com/probe_meters.html

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Brandon - holy crap. I can just barely get to 975F. Is my blower too small? I don't have and airtight arch, so I'm probably limited.

I would guess that you could get a little higher running a bigger blower but one key is would be directing the air thru smaller holes underneath the grates vs stanard grates they have a lot of space for the air to flow thru the large slots. You are not going to be able blow a ton of air thru a stanard arch or it will blow ash everywhere.

[RileySugarbush]

I've been using the same Condor probe thermometer as Brandon and sometimes peg it over 1700deg. Max temp, max evaporation rate and max wood consumption.

[briansickler]

Brandon - holy crap. I can just barely get to 975F. Is my blower too small? I don't have and airtight arch, so I'm probably limited.

What size smoke stack do you have? I test boiled with water and had a stack temp of 1000 degrees without even trying. That's with no blower. Just natural draft. I have 10" stack, 13 feet tall. My thermometer has the probe that goes into the flue through a hole. I bought it from Bascoms.

Brian

[TapME]

I was asking the kind of termometer because the ones that stick on the stack can give you an idea of temp, not the true temp.
You know when you have good draft when there are no ashes to clean out under the grates at the end of the season(or during).

[Sugarmaker]

Just for clarity I do not use the probe thermometer into the stack. I have the one screwed to the outside surface of the stack, so my temps may be a lot lower. I record 550 to 700 degrees F as normal. Sounds like I could get higher numbers with a probe. I use this just as another indicator of how the rig is performing. Kind of like gauges on your car dash.
Chris

[steve J]

I fired my new 2x4 with a blower Saturday and found I was pushing 900 on the stack and could not open door to fire with out backing the blower down first. After experimenting It appeared to me to be boiling faster with blower at half throttle is it possible that with blower on high I was not holding my heat inside the evaporator but rather blowing it up the flu?

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I ran the evaporator yesterday firing every 5 minutes and kept stack temps most of the time between 1500 and 1650 and boiled off 660 gallons in 10 hours startup and shutdown included. Firing every 5 minutes kept the stack temp more consistent and steady.

[longbeard]

Does anyone know what the relationship is with the temp of an internal themometer vs. an external one i.e. a magnetic stick on type?

In other words does anyone have both or tried both at the same time.

I just have the external version and was wondering how to adjust for the actual internal stack temp. TIA

[red maples]

Just for clarity I do not use the probe thermometer into the stack. I have the one screwed to the outside surface of the stack, so my temps may be a lot lower. I record 550 to 700 degrees F as normal. Sounds like I could get higher numbers with a probe. I use this just as another indicator of how the rig is performing. Kind of like gauges on your car dash.
Chris

Yes thank you for mentioning that. mine usually runs best at 6-650. I have no air either and thats what I get at the top of the base stack on the exterior ones. I get a really really strong boil all the way through my flue pans!!! SO I am happy without force air.

and for someone from near the begining of the post. with my stack temps at 650... I have made my air front top bar right above the doors(I insulated the doors) glow red and I think cast iron glows red at what 1200*F so you know the inside fire is wicked hot...

[Brent]

Flatlander
4" diam wood is a bit on the heavy side for a 2x6. I was told to split down to the size of my wrist. That will make a difference.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

Flatlander
4" diam wood is a bit on the heavy side for a 2x6. I was told to split down to the size of my wrist. That will make a difference.

Ok, doing what was said years ago and reiterated at maple seminar in Middlebury VT, "size of your upper forearm. When I think 4" I think pvc conduit hahaha.
All wood if possible will be split smaller thanks

My stack temp has been right around 900 to 975

[Brent]

It will help on a small rig ... same size I had last year.

If you watch the videos for the 4 x 12 Hurricane rigs, they're tossiing in 6 and 7" diam whole logs.