Few evap. questions

[MainelyMaple]

This is our first year with a real evaporator, its a 40x13 with king pans. We have been running it 2" deep to play it safe. I ran 650 gal through It before I drew any off. I have run an additional 1100 gal through it since the first draw and have made about 20 total so far. Does this seem low or is there really that much syrup sitting in the evap? Also our draws have been large and far apart. About 2-3 gal every hour and a half or so. Are there any tricks for drawing more consistently? Thanks for any help

[danno]

To reduce bulk draws, try the following.

Load wood at very regular intevals - like EVERY 8 or 10 minutes. If you have 2 doors in the front of the arch, open one door, load wood, close door then do the same with the other door. Load wood quickly and get that door shut. Only load a couple pieces of wood at a time. Don't let it burn down, and add a bunch at once. If you draw syrup, and it's thin, DO NOT pour it back in the draw off box. Run sap closer to 1 1/2 if you dare (I run mine 1 3/4-2 as well). If you draw heavy, do not thin with syrup from the draw box. Thin with sap from your back pan if you have a valve back there.

Also, are you running forced air, and if so, is it primarily directed at your middle channels? If so, your making syrup in the middle of your pan. You start your draw at syrup, then draw gets heavy and then you draw thin to equalize the batch. Now you have very thin syrup at your draw which has to get all the way to srup which begins your next bulk draw scenario.

And my best suggestion. I used to batch like you, until i bought a Marcland Auto Draw. It's helped allot with my draws. With the digital thermo in 1/10's, you can really see what's going on in your pans. When I open my doors to fire, temp drops a degree or two, and than has to heat back up. If I load to much wood, temp drops.

Regarding 1800 gallosn of sap for 20 gallons of syrup. Depends how sweet your sap is. For my sap, that would be just about right. Takes about 500 gallosn to sweeten my pans and I get sligithly less than 20 gallons of syrup on 1000 gallons of sap. At the end of the year, you can push all that sweet out with water on your last run.

[PerryW]

This is our first year with a real evaporator, its a 40x13 with king pans. We have been running it 2" deep to play it safe. I ran 650 gal through It before I drew any off. I have run an additional 1100 gal through it since the first draw and have made about 20 total so far. Does this seem low or is there really that much syrup sitting in the evap? Also our draws have been large and far apart. About 2-3 gal every hour and a half or so. Are there any tricks for drawing more consistently? Thanks for any help

Sounds about right to me. My 3x10 takes 400-500 gallons before the first take-off and take-offs are about 1.5 gallons every 1 to 1.5 hours. Running shallower makes the drawoffs smaller and closer together; but I like the safety of running deeper and less take-off mean less filter changing.