Boil Off Maple Rama

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

I have a few pics and will try to post in order
http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e234/poultneyfiredog18/Sugaring/IMG00806.jpg
Left to right in picture, Leader, Lap, D&G, WH Supply, CDL
this is after first hour of boiling. CDL started out really good followed by Lap and D@G, Leader and another

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e234/poultneyfiredog18/Sugaring/IMG00807.jpg
This pic is at second hour and final of competition

Sap marked at duct tape, bottom of tape was level of water at each hour


CDL boiled off most water in the 2 hour time limit

Lap boiled off the most water with least amount of wood used


It was very interesting to see how they all performed at the same time.
Oh by the way leader was running their Max Flu pans.
If I am wrong with anything above please let me know I was like a little kid in a candy store hehe or some other place

[3rdgen.maple]

Well I thinks its pretty clear that the cdl tank had a hole in it:D. Tell us what rigs they all had there will you. I am curious who brought what and who wished they brought something else instead. If leader brought a max setup IM guessing these were not all on an equal playing field? So what did they bring to the olympic boilathon? Who flooded there pans at the last minute to get that tank level down lol. I would assume they took the amount in the pans into their calculations yes.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

Well I thinks its pretty clear that the cdl tank had a hole in it:D. Tell us what rigs they all had there will you. I am curious who brought what and who wished they brought something else instead. If leader brought a max setup IM guessing these were not all on an equal playing field? So what did they bring to the olympic boilathon? Who flooded there pans at the last minute to get that tank level down lol. I would assume they took the amount in the pans into their calculations yes.

All plane jane rigs 3x12 I believe, cdl intens-o-fire, WH Supply forced air, D&G forced air, Lap force5, leader vortex with max pans.
Judges measured all tanks front and back from mid point line and calculated amount of water. Then I saw them looking in a couple of the pans front and rear not sure what they looking for , maybe like you said to see if some one flooded their pan. Then they walked the wood and estimated what was used.

No pre\heaters, hoods, steam away/piggybacks,

[Thad Blaisdell]

Was the measurements at the beginning with full pans or empty? It looks like they used more in the first hour than the second..... Did the competition start with no water in pans?

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

Was the measurements at the beginning with full pans or empty? It looks like they used more in the first hour than the second..... Did the competition start with no water in pans?

i think they did start with water in pans because the tanks looked full right up to the top of tanks

[802maple]

They were all allowed to fill their pans to the level they wanted and then the tanks were refilled to very top so they all started equally. If the levels weren't where they wanted them it was their own fault. They all had the same amount of wood mixtures according to species and quality to start from Don Dolliver. I thought of this idea last year and honestly I didn't think any supplier would bite, but thanks to Andy Hutchinson he made it happen. I personally would like to thank all the companies and all customers should thank them also. I think it was a huge success. On a different day, there might be different results, but on this day, my old design of the intens-o-fire did well, but everybody did well in my opinion.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

They were all allowed to fill their pans to the level they wanted and then the tanks were refilled to very top so they all started equally. If the levels weren't where they wanted them it was their own fault. They all had the same amount of wood mixtures according to species and quality to start from Don Dolliver. I thought of this idea last year and honestly I didn't think any supplier would bite, but thanks to Andy Hutchinson he made it happen. I personally would like to thank all the companies and all customers should thank them also. I think it was a huge success. On a different day, there might be different results, but on this day, my old design of the intens-o-fire did well, but everybody did well in my opinion.

just like the announcer said"some people like Fords, some dodges, and some Chevy's", all the units did well.

[Grade "A"]

I was cheering for the little rig on the end. I think the pan was less than 1 foot square.

[Eric McLellan]

I was there and can tell you that the CDL rig was running full draft. Not gasifaction mode, where the guy from Lap was runing gasifaction mode. CDL had alot of smoke were the lap rig had none. I currently own CDL intenso fire II and was more inpressed with Lap rig. Thinking about selling base and buying Lap rig.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

I was cheering for the little rig on the end. I think the pan was less than 1 foot square.

ok you caught me trying to throw every one off and keeping this a secret t myself. Here's a pic of the rig, now it takes time for him to build these works of art so if your interested in one please contact fabricater ASAP so you can receive it by Dec.

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e234/poultneyfiredog18/Sugaring/IMG00802-1.jpg

not sure if this is going to help or hurt Leader hahahahahahahahahahahahah

[oneoldsap]

Leader was running their 11.5" MaxFlue Pan against everybody elses 7" raised flue Pans ! They were actually able to keep up , I was impressed ! WH Supply was pretty impressive too , they looked like they'd brought a knife to a gun fight ! It's good to know that the Cream will still rise to the top !

[MorrillMaple]

the cdl evaporator only billowed smoke as they fired and a few mins after when they were in forced draft mode but within 5 minutes after firing they were in gasification mode whis is what is nice about the intenso-fire they can go forced air or gasification. and after firing it wasn't smoking as you couldnt even see any smoke out the stack.

[Dennis H.]

The pics of the tanks on the trailer also shows something interesting. It looks like the smoke stacks on the different evaps were also of different heights!!
Would this not effect how the would run??

Did anyone get any pics on the evaps them selves?

[802maple]

Draft is effected in a negative way with to long a stack as they should be running positive pressure like a oil fired evaporator.

One thing that verified a suspicion of mine was that deeper flues are not that much of an advantage. Maybe in certain applications but not in a extemely hot and efficient evaporator. I have always felt that if the BTU's were there it didn't make that much difference with the deeper flues. One probably can go to shallow of a flue, but if your sap is achieving boiling temperature with a 7 inch, it will not get any hotter and thus evaporate any faster. The churning of the surface is what is releasing the steam and if the surface is violently moving it just can't boil any higher of a temperature.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

the reason I was told about the diff. stack heights was if you are running forced air there is no need for the 2 or 2.5 x the evaporator length, the forced air makes up for it. 3 of the 5 had short stacks.

[802maple]

As long as you are getting out of your sugarhouse and creating positive pressure, all is good. as long as your positive pressure is coming from your secondary air.

[mapleack]

It was very interesting to watch. I'm pretty sure that CDL had a 9' flue pan on their rig. That would be a good reason for them evaporating the most. I had a pretty interesting discussion with Rejean, the force 5 inventor, who said he was being too conservative with wood loading and could've blown away the competition if he could do it over. All in all an interesting demonstration.

[Mark]

I hope they give it another try next year. I never had so much fun watching water boil in the rain!

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

[QUOTE=Mark;159756]I hope they give it another try next yearQUOTE]

I bet it will be a yearly thing now, All it would take is to have one manufacturer enter and the rest would have to..

[Rejean]

Hi Flat Lander,
Lapierre has indicated that we would LOVE to participate to other boil-offs!

It took me a while during the firing to get used to the wood provided... not bad, just way too dry for the combustion temps encountered in the force 5.

In the last 30 minutes (after adjusting to the dry wood), I calculated that we were evaporating at approx. 170 gals/hr! The combustion temp was steady at +2000 F!

We are ready for the second round...

As far as enhanced flue pans (+60% surface) are concerned, there seems to be no advantage.

[802maple]

Rejean, if you had a gin and tonic earlier, I am sure you would have caught on quicker.

[Rejean]

802 Maple,
alas, Tanqueray or Bombay would have not helped much. My marching orders were: "No smoke and let's stick to every specification published to date". I really wanted to prove that the Force 5, while being a green machine, could compete head to head with fast but inefficient (smoke, lots of wood) evaporators. I think that the cards are finally on the table!!!
Cheers

[sam1234]

Does anyone have the final numbers for each manufacturers - qty of wood used? total gallons of water evaporated?

In my opinion, I think CDL went for the max evaporation ''award''.
Ususally, in drag racing, this is what people want to see! :-), but the CDL rig is flexible so it could have used less wood, but evaporated less water too...

This is what I like about this rig, flexibility....
some producers do not care about wood consumption, they want performance.

But I think all the rigs did great since within 2 hours of boiling, they didn't have time to stabilize. It would have been nice to see a longer boiling period.

[Rejean]

Sam1234,
here it is, directly from Andy (our host)!

gallons Wood pallet Details

CDL 310 1 1/2 9' flue pan (+12.5%)
WH Supply 200 7/8
D&G 285 1 1/4
Lapierre 285 7/8
Leader 300 1 1/4 11" flues (+60%)

A pallet was approx. 1/8 of FULL cord.

Enjoy!

[sam1234]

Interesting

Thank you Rejean.

[802maple]

Rejean, I have to agree with you about to dryness of wood. When I originally designed the Intens-O-Fire, I told the powers to be at Maple Pro that it should have some moisture to the wood and I was told I was nuts. (like everyone else does). If I get my act in gear, I have a new idea in a pan and arch design that I will have ready for next year if all goes well, then we will have to put the bottle of tangueray between us and have at it. LOL

[Thad Blaisdell]

Now with all that info I would be interested in knowing the cost of each unit to buy. Then you could have dollar per gallon boiled off. To me that is where the bare bones is.

[Rejean]

802 maple,
wood moisture is the KEY to excellent gasification... Evaporators that require dry wood (less than 20%) are likely not true gasifier. Wood gas is better produced from "wet wood". Wood gas burns just like propane (smokeless, hot, clean)...

[Amber Gold]

Rejean, glad to see you're finally on the trader. How much better do you think you could've done with wood at the optimum moisture content?

I'm glad to see the boiloff was finally done and I agree it should be done every year. I am surprised the max flue pan doesn't make that much of a difference, but then how do they claim the boiling rate increases by 20%? I think Proctor verified this when they were boiling w/ different technologies to determine what the actual gains are between stock rig, max pan, steamaway, preheater, and etc.

Running the numbers for gal boiled/wood consumed, I got the following:
CDL 1656 gal/chord
W.H. Supply 1824 gal/chord
D&G 1824 gal/chord
Lapierre 2600 gal/chord
Leader 1920 gal/chord
My Rig 1000 gal/chord

Keep in mind, I've put these into gal/full chord numbers, assuming the pallets were 1/8 chords. What's interesting is not only did the Force 5 have a top boiling rate number, it was also ~35% more efficient than it's closest efficiency competitor (Leader). I'm guessing it wouldn't have taken too much effort to have gotten the Force 5 over 300 gal boiled.

The numbers for "My Rig" are approximate and are based on how much wood I burned and how much concentrated sap I think I boiled...this was hard to determine since I started the season at 6% and finished at ~15%, I estimated an 8% average. So this shows the modern rigs are ~80% more efficient than my rig w/ a forced draft blower...that's a serious drop in wood consumption for anyone making an upgrade. This also shows technology has come a long ways in recent years.

[Thad Blaisdell]

Two things that has not been told yet that I have now heard is

That Leader was disqualified for bringing the max flue pan and that at the end they just let it simmer therefore the lower boiling amount.

Secondly that WH Supply blew the motor running the Air over Fire, thus giving them the lower boil amount.

More food for thought,
CDL rig as it sat was $26,000
WH Supply $18,000
Lapierre ???
D&G ???
Leader ???

Would love to know the last three

[LittleEnnis]

I'd be interested in seeing the possibility of multiple rigs per vendor next year. Sure, we can debate if the CDL or Lapierre rig WOULD have run faster if they were both at full blast, but wouldn't it be nice to KNOW?

If you can get people you trust to fire each rig, I say let people run two rigs, each at different modes. Wood conservation (gasification) and full-bore.

[Amber Gold]

Thad, when Chris Pfiel bought his 3x12 Force 5 w/out a hood/preheater two years ago, it was ~$21,000.

[802maple]

This is getting to sound more and more like the stockcar racing that I am involved in with all kinds of excuses. Does anyone really believe that a company would come there to intentionally make a fool of them selves by just simmering in front of 200 people and intentionally losing? As I have said many times before, this how it ended up this time, another time it could be different.

I have also heard that WH Supply's rig blew a breaker and another company said that because of the placement of their evaporator they couldn't get good air and that is why they failed to win. What would happen to that evaporator in a tight sugarhouse.

I to hope this happens again next year, but these are the results of this year.

[DrTimPerkins]

I think Proctor verified this when they were boiling w/ different technologies to determine what the actual gains are between stock rig, max pan, steamaway, preheater, and etc.

The "Boil Off" was an interesting concept, and certainly was good entertainment from what I've heard (I wasn't there), but as 802 and others have said, it was a single data point on a single day. CDL is certainly to be congratulated for carrying the day (at least in terms of coming out slightly ahead on evaporation amount). What it will really take is about 10 years of those types of contests before we really can draw a lot of conclusions from it.

Caveat....in our studies we compared evaporation rates of a standard Leader pan and a Leader MAX pan (same size) with an OIL-FIRED evaporator. Results with a wood-fired evaporator would likely be somewhat different.

The MAX pan, under our specific testing conditions, increased evaporation rate by 22.9% (average of many runs).

A few other items of note we found during those studies

1. It takes about 30-45 min for an OIL-FIRED evaporator to reach steady-state. I'd expect it to take a bit longer in a wood-fired arch. However once you get up to a nice long time period where evaporation rate starts to become meaningful, if you're actually boiling sap, you need to either switch sides (reverse-flow evaporators) or change pans (cross-flow pans). So the amount of down-time to do those starts to also affect the results. Arguments for which is better go both ways.

2. There is a substantial amount of variation from run-to-run (even in an oil-fired rig), which would almost certainly be far higher in a wood-fired rig where you have other variables (wood condition, firing rate, etc, to consider. There is also a good amount of variation between identical evaporators. We have CDL come and tune each of our 4 test evaporators to the same specifications before our boiling experiments each spring. Best they can manage gets them within about 4-5% of each other (again....this is with oil-fired rigs). The variation is even larger when you're boiling sap, because you also have the issue of how much is drawn-off and the timing of draw-offs in relation to your test period.

3. The Steam-Away increased evaporation by about 71% (with either a standard or MAX pan)....so use of any type of steam-enhancement device is well advised in many instances, and beside adding an RO, is probably the best way to increase energy efficiency.

Now if I'd been thinking....I'd have suggested to all the manufacturers that they donate those test rigs they brought to MapleRama to UVM PMRC, and we'd have set them up in our Maple Processing Research Facility and then done some in-depth comparisons of them over the winter. That would have been fun. :)

[sam1234]

Some companies went for the efficiency...
Some companies went for performance...

They should make two round for next year...
1st round : Efficiency
2nd round : Highest evaporation rate

This would allow the customer's to see what they really want to see.

Some customer's like performance and do not care about burning more wood. Making syrup is often a sideline for them and all they want to do is boil as fast as possible so they have more time to spend in the woods where we all know this is where the money is...

Some customer's like to save on wood because they like boiling.

[gearpump]

I think the next comparision should be no holes barred bring what ever you got and see who boils the most. Oil,Wood,Pellets,Woodchips, Nuclear fired, Steamaways... Let each company bring their best of the best and see who can out boil the other.

[Bruce L]

Did anyone take any videos of the pans boiling for youtube,etc. that the rest of us who weren't there could view?

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

I audio recorded the final results and when I get a chance and figure it out I will post them for every one here to listen to. I think a couple things mentioned have been skewed a little.

so what leader brought there max pans, they obviously didn't run away with the boil off. I believe the evap. rate is all in the arch or more so than the pans themselves.

[BryanEx]

I audio recorded the final results and when I get a chance and figure it out I will post them for every one here to listen to. I think a couple things mentioned have been skewed a little.
Maple trader has extremely low attachment size limits so if you have trouble sharing your file just get it to me and I'll host it on my server.

- Bryan

[3rdgen.maple]

[QUOTE=802maple;159817]This is getting to sound more and more like the stockcar racing that I am involved in with all kinds of excuses. Does anyone really believe that a company would come there to intentionally make a fool of them selves by just simmering in front of 200 people and intentionally losing? As I have said many times before, this how it ended up this time, another time it could be different.

Maybe they were dogging it to get a better handicap start for the big 10,000 dollar to win race. lol great analogy 802

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

Maple trader has extremely low attachment size limits so if you have trouble sharing your file just get it to me and I'll host it on my server.

- Bryan

ok Bryan, I did listen to it again I thought a couple statements were skewed but I think they were on. I will still get it to you. Found an email for you I think check your website, sent it twice, once through crackberry and once from computer

[802maple]

[QUOTE=802maple;159817]This is getting to sound more and more like the stockcar racing that I am involved in with all kinds of excuses. Does anyone really believe that a company would come there to intentionally make a fool of them selves by just simmering in front of 200 people and intentionally losing? As I have said many times before, this how it ended up this time, another time it could be different.

Maybe they were dogging it to get a better handicap start for the big 10,000 dollar to win race. lol great analogy 802

Thats true, I wasn't thinking ahead. We have a guy in our division that does just that. We call him "stroker" because he always setting himself up for the best handicap in the big races.

[MorrillMaple]

actually thad the cost of the CDL evaporator as it sat at maplerama was $23,587. i would really like to see another boil competition go on now that people can see what they really can do because after reading alot of the posts there were alot of excuses made for the results.

[BryanEx]

ok Bryan, I did listen to it again I thought a couple statements were skewed but I think they were on. I will still get it to you. Found an email for you I think check your website, sent it twice, once through crackberry and once from computer

As promised... here is the hosted audio file uploaded to my Sugarbush.Info server;

http://www.sugarbush.info/imagehosting/boiloff.amr

Just a note to Traders wanting to listen to it... you will need either Quick time or Real player installed for it to work. Both are free downloads if you don't have them already on your computer.

- Bryan

[collinsmapleman2012]

As promised... here is the hosted audio file uploaded to my Sugarbush.Info server;

http://www.sugarbush.info/imagehosting/boiloff.amr

Just a note to Traders wanting to listen to it... you will need either Quick time or Real player installed for it to work. Both are free downloads if you don't have them already on your computer.

- Bryan

uh bryan? all i get is a huge page full of strange characters

[BryanEx]

uh bryan? all i get is a huge page full of strange characters

Do you have Quick time or Real player installed and if you do, try right clicking and saving it to your desktop and playing it from there. Windows media player does not recognize the .amr format it's recorded in.

[sugarmountain]

I thought the "boil off" was very interesting. This is the kinda stuff that a bunch of sugar makers do in the middle of the summer to keep from ripping our hair out! Hats off to 802 and every one who organized it. I guess we saw everything from energy savings to average. I guess im gonna stick with the old king and put my money in the woods but fun to see them boiling away!

[dshansen]

I just bought a 3x10 intensofire for 2013, what was your average boiling rate in 2012



14x20 sugar house with14 by 20 woodshed attached
2000 taps, all buckets
3x10 intensofire with preheater

[maple flats]

Draft is effected in a negative way with to long a stack as they should be running positive pressure like a oil fired evaporator.

One thing that verified a suspicion of mine was that deeper flues are not that much of an advantage. Maybe in certain applications but not in a extemely hot and efficient evaporator. I have always felt that if the BTU's were there it didn't make that much difference with the deeper flues. One probably can go to shallow of a flue, but if your sap is achieving boiling temperature with a 7 inch, it will not get any hotter and thus evaporate any faster. The churning of the surface is what is releasing the steam and if the surface is violently moving it just can't boil any higher of a temperature.
802, If the pans don't make a difference, how is it that a flat pan gets less boil rate than a flue pan? For me, I went with and believe in taller flues. I had mine made with 10" raised flues.

[802maple]

Of course a flat pan won't boil with a flue pan, but I will put a 7 inch against any of the deeper flues anyday with the right arch under them, given equal circumstances, meaning wood or oil and equal depth over the flues. If you are happy with 10 inch flues then I say that is what you need. If you have a evaporator that won't produce the btu's then a deeper flue most likely will out produce shallower ones. My first oil fired evaporator was a hard boiling GH Grimm, 5x14 with a 10 foot flue pans and 5 inch flues, with 3 oil burners, which used a total 27 gallons per hour. After boiling on that a few years I decided that I was going to go to 7 inch and boil faster and it didn't do a bit more evaporation.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

Of course a flat pan won't boil with a flue pan, but I will put a 7 inch against any of the deeper flues anyday with the right arch under them, given equal circumstances, meaning wood or oil and equal depth over the flues. If you are happy with 10 inch flues then I say that is what you need. If you have a evaporator that won't produce the btu's then a deeper flue most likely will out produce shallower ones. My first oil fired evaporator was a hard boiling GH Grimm, 5x14 with a 10 foot flue pans and 5 inch flues, with 3 oil burners, which used a total 27 gallons per hour. After boiling on that a few years I decided that I was going to go to 7 inch and boil faster and it didn't do a bit more evaporation.
heyyy Jerry, need to hop in you truck come on down to P town and watch the FlatLander Tsunami boil soon!

[802maple]

Yeah< I need to see that Force 5.5 work. When the sap starts running in about 4 weeks I will be down to see the 3 amigos, the Poultney Storm,The Hubbardton tornado and of course The Orwell lightning Bolt

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

yeah< i need to see that force 5.5 work. When the sap starts running in about 4 weeks i will be down to see the 3 amigos, the poultney storm,the hubbardton tornado and of course the orwell lightning bolt
hahahahahahahahahaha

[twobigflanders]

Hi Are you happy with your intensofire?

[dshansen]

I am very satisfied with the Intensofire, We boiled an average of 160 gallons per hour on a 3x10 with pre-heater, very smooth running, cleaned pans after every 10 hours of boil. A few issues, spark arrester plugged with ash when we used pine or when we closed the dampers to burn less wood, more efficiency. We had no problems with oak. Draft cables still a problem, as fire box gets hot enough to melt them, needs more insulation on the side containing the cables. Temperature sensor in the stack is helpful to get max efficiency . In general.. I love it...

2000 taps-all buckets
50 Lutheran Youth to collect
4 old guys with F-350 Crew Cabs/325 gallon collection tanks
3x10 Intensofire with pre-heater

[Randy Brutkoski]

I just bought another post for that force 5 so now I will be able to crank up that ro alittle more. 2 membraines just wasn't enough to keep up with the incinerator.