captian niko
04-04-2011, 09:27 AM
O.K. so I need a little advice, I’ve Ben syruping off and on for 30 years. Helped others and ran school programs about how natives and pioneers made sugar. I even worked in a commercial sugar bush as a teenager.
Previous years we had- an outside block arch with a 30”x36” old dented steel pan, 35 to 75 taps with buckets, finish inside on wood cook stove 2 to 3 gallons dark Smokey syrup and loved every minute of it. This year we made the move too- inside barrel type arch 2’x4’ stainless pan with preheater, 135 taps this year 250 next. The main thing I learned is how much I don’t know!
It took 20 hours to produce just under 5 gallons syrup from 190 gallons sap.
This seems slow to me. (lots of heat lost out the side). I plan to build a masonry arch in the near future but first I’d like to settle on my evaporator system. I’d like to keep the 2’X4’ pan do you guys think its big enough? I like the idea of adding a drop flue pan but I’m not sure how they work. Would a 2X2’ or 2’X4’ drop flue pan make sense?
I’ll probably stick to 150 to 250 taps but my neighbor has trees and they may want to add up to 200 trees to the operation, any ideas on a flexible system 100 to 400 taps?
Also with my old system we would just lift the pan of the fire at near finish time.
How is this done on a pan with a draw of valve? I’m concerned with burning?
Also the sap I put in at the start boiled 20 hours before it was drawn off, the pan does have baffles but I don’t know how to draw off early while adding more sap.
This site is new to me and I’ve already learned allot. Any advise is much appreciated
Previous years we had- an outside block arch with a 30”x36” old dented steel pan, 35 to 75 taps with buckets, finish inside on wood cook stove 2 to 3 gallons dark Smokey syrup and loved every minute of it. This year we made the move too- inside barrel type arch 2’x4’ stainless pan with preheater, 135 taps this year 250 next. The main thing I learned is how much I don’t know!
It took 20 hours to produce just under 5 gallons syrup from 190 gallons sap.
This seems slow to me. (lots of heat lost out the side). I plan to build a masonry arch in the near future but first I’d like to settle on my evaporator system. I’d like to keep the 2’X4’ pan do you guys think its big enough? I like the idea of adding a drop flue pan but I’m not sure how they work. Would a 2X2’ or 2’X4’ drop flue pan make sense?
I’ll probably stick to 150 to 250 taps but my neighbor has trees and they may want to add up to 200 trees to the operation, any ideas on a flexible system 100 to 400 taps?
Also with my old system we would just lift the pan of the fire at near finish time.
How is this done on a pan with a draw of valve? I’m concerned with burning?
Also the sap I put in at the start boiled 20 hours before it was drawn off, the pan does have baffles but I don’t know how to draw off early while adding more sap.
This site is new to me and I’ve already learned allot. Any advise is much appreciated