epiphany for the turkey fryer guys

[sams64]

Due to messing up my back I have not had a chance to get my block arch put together and I needed to get boiling so I am working with the turkey fryer for he moment. In the past I have kept adding cold sap to the fryer I had boiled off a few gallons. Obviously this took forever as I kept dropping the temp well below boiling.

To avoid this I have started bring sap up to a boil on the stove and now add boiling sap to my batch. I realize that this is probably not a new concept, but, if it helps one other hobby guy out then it is worth posting.

sam

[adk1]

Due to messing up my back I have not had a chance to get my block arch put together and I needed to get boiling so I am working with the turkey fryer for he moment. In the past I have kept adding cold sap to the fryer I had boiled off a few gallons. Obviously this took forever as I kept dropping the temp well below boiling.

To avoid this I have started bring sap up to a boil on the stove and now add boiling sap to my batch. I realize that this is probably not a new concept, but, if it helps one other hobby guy out then it is worth posting.

sam

Hey, I give you alot of credit for doing that!

[Rossell's Sugar Camp]

How many gph do you get doing it that way. When i did it on a turkey frier i got like 1 gallon an hour adding cold. Thats a great idea for the hobbiest.

[sams64]

I'm still trying to get a feel, but, its looking like 3+. I won't have the block up until this weekend so I should have a good feel by Friday night.

sam

[Rossell's Sugar Camp]

Thats impressive for a turkey frier.

[40to1]

When I used a turkey fryer I found it helpful to wrap the whole thing with aluminum foil. From about a 1/4" off the ground, around the stand, and up the sides of the pot was wrapped in foil. There was enough air intake at the bottom and just enough room around the sides of the pot for the exhaust to escape. Kind of looked like some NASA satellite sitting on the patio.
The big benefit of all this was that it kept the wind from knocking down the fire. Worked like a charm, and would last the whole season.

[PerryW]

Personally, I would get every coleman stove, propane stove and turkey fryer I could beg borrow or steal and set then up in the yard in a big line and run them all at once. You can even add sap to the stove at one end of the line and keep dippering from one pan to another and use the stove at the other end for taking off syrup.

[sams64]

I'm still trying to get a feel, but, its looking like 3+. I won't have the block up until this weekend so I should have a good feel by Friday night.

sam

I think for the moment I need to revise this down to 2.5 gallon/hr. Still alot better than I was getting by adding cold to my already boiling sap.

sam

[johnallin]

You may try setting up a coffee can with a hole punched in the bottom to allow sap to drip into the fryer.
Adjust the dripping to match the evaporation rate, with a tooth pick or something, and you won't kill the boil.
This is what we did on our single pan wood stove set up 5 years ago and it worked very well.

[Rossell's Sugar Camp]

the cheapest alternative to a turkey frier is a welded steel pan and cement blocks. Thats what i did. And on a stove in the kitchen add in one burner then ladel out of it into the next one then down the line to the last one. you will keep doing this till the last one becomes syrup.

i miss doing it on the stove being able to watch tv while boiling. Now it is shoveling coal or checking for vacuum leaks. A tv would be nice in the sugar shack.

[PapaSmiff]

Johnallin,

I tried your coffee can idea in my turkey fryer. Works GREAT! I wish I started doing this at the beginning of the season, instead of the end. Would have saved me a lot of propane.

[johnallin]

Bill, not an original idea - think it came out of "Backyard Syrup book" - but sure works good. It does the same thing the bigger rigs do float valves and keeps the boil up.
Glad it worked so well for you.

[KenWP]

When I was boiling sap from 150 taps in a 16x18 inch pan I ened up useing a old metal 5 gallon pail with the ends cut out to heat up sap in a ss pot to add to the syrup pan.I was boiling 25 hours straight a day to even try and keep up and was still three days behind right up to the end of the season. With adding cold sap to the boil I would have never caught up.

[Clan Delaney]

If I had ever managed to get 3gph out of my turkey fryers, I never would have upgraded!

For the longest time, I balanced my wife's cake pans on the edges of the pots, and put cold sap in them. Set the timer for 20 minutes, and go back in the house where it's warm. Times up, go out, dump the 150+ degree sap in the pot, and refill. Worked out okay. We had to go a month and a half without cake, though. :cry:

[Kev]

you guys make me really glad i started on a 2x4 pan....inside the shack LOL
but then look at all the fun I missed ...right?

[SevenCreeksSap]

I did the same thing last year except was adding frozen sap! Learned quick this year and started preheating on the house woodstove. Boiled outside on some warmer days and inside the house was 100 degrees but at least had the preheater going. Next year will have some better setup.

[sugarshed]

last year i made 3 gal with 20 buckets and 2 turkey fryers.cost alot in gas. this year 2x3 halfpint on 50 buckets already made over a gal and the woods free.

[BuoyChaser]

Great tips with pre-heating. Going to start the boil tomorrow. First collection yielded about 8+ gallons of sap from 24 taps from (1:00-7:00pm), emptied about 3/4 of buckets. Some great flow with constant drips and others almost no drips or very little (4-6). Look forward to wrapping the turkey fryer in foil and pre-heating in the house. Great tips!!! Figuring it all out so hopefully not too agressive with 24 taps. Need to pick up some juice barrels or other inexpensive means for temporary storage before the boil.

[mathprofdk]

This was a tip I got from a friend who is a glass/ceramics artist - wrap some ceramic insulation around the base of the fryer to contain the heat (see attached). You'll need to leave some space so it can breath, but this was amazing. I was easily over 3 gph with this and pre-heating. Of course, I only discovered it for my last boil of the season! (Already done here in Illinois, barring any sudden freezes.)