Barrel Evaporator

[RC Maple]

I just picked up a small evaporator made from a steel barrel. The barrel measures 3'x2' and has a 20" x 24" pan sitting on the cut out portion of the drum. I would attach a picture but I don't know how. The drum has a Vogelzang door in the front and a 6" stack coming out behind the pan on top of the drum as it is laying down. There is a layer insulation inside and a 20" grate inside. Now-- how many gph can this thing boil? Any other advice for using it?

[cpmaple]

hello i had a 2x3 evaporator for my first and most i could get out of it was 7gph on most days it was 5. i added a little blower into the draft door and that kept it at 6 or 7 most of the time. I had a preheater pan on the back of mine which helped alot with a holding tank feed that.somewhere i have pics when i find them i will post them for you cpmaple

[ClarkFarmMapleSyrup]

I currently, have a Leader Half Pint Evaporator, which has a 2x3 ft. fan on it, and I also have a preheater tank on top of it. I get about 4-5 gph. with mine. I have a small fan that I also use for forced air. I only had about 20 taps last season, and I kept up with it pretty good. This year will bring 30 or more. How many taps do you plan on having? :confused:

[RC Maple]

I would like to have 20 or so taps this year. I can't boil all that much during the week and i'm trying to find out if I can keep up with one this size. It's my first year and I don't want to turn this into a chore.

[C.Wilcox]

A pan that size will likely boil between 4-6 gallons per hour assuming your sap is preheated before it enters the pan. If you don't preheat and add larger volumes of cold sap at a time you could get significantly lower boil rates. If you have 20 taps you could get up to 40 gallons of sap on a good day. That's approximately 8 hours of boiling. An average day where you got 1 gallon of sap per tap you'd be looking at approximately 4 hours of boiling. Keep in mind though that some days you don't get anything so the longer nights tend to balance out with the days the trees don't run.

[ClarkFarmMapleSyrup]

I would like to have 20 or so taps this year. I can't boil all that much during the week and i'm trying to find out if I can keep up with one this size. It's my first year and I don't want to turn this into a chore.


Yeah I know what you mean. Start off small and work your way up. If you have the 20''x24'' pan you should be able to keep up with the 20 taps. If not and you find yourself with to much sap, and not enough boiling time, some larger producers will buy sap from people. Also, if you have to much sap, just pull a few taps, and the tree will continue to drip, but will heal up at the end of the season so it won't drip anymore.

[BryanEx]

If you have too much sap just keep boiling your freshest stuff and work back. If you catch up and process it all that's great but if not it's the oldest stuff you're turning out on the heavy flow days. Too much sap is a very easy problem to deal with and only helps your end quality while not enough sap can be far less than helpful.