Too many buckets for evaporator?

[hicks road]

I have 18"x 48" grimm evaporator with air under fire and pre heater and divided pan. wondering if anybody thought that 80 buckets would be to much? I have lots of storage but I know sap will only last so long.The majority of my boiling time would be friday, saturday and sunday.

[Brent]

my guess is if the rig has flues it should boil fast enough to keep up

if it's a flat pan you'll have long long days of boiling.

when we had a Leader Half Pint with about that many buckets, I had to light the fire before I started breadfast coffee, and the 11:00 news was over before the boiling.

[Rockwood]

Like Myself your in for some long days.. I have ended up boiling on the Tuesdays, Thursdays and all weekend just to keep up.. (depending on the sap runs of course). I don't mind however it's sort of a mini vacation from work for the month and a half..;)

[maple flats]

I don't think it will be big enough on the best days. With a bucket on a good day you will get 3-4 gal on most of the good trees. Even if you only average 2 gal/tap. Do some math. What does your rig do in an hour" My guess is 12-15 gph if really pushed. If you have average days strung out from Monday to Friday you could get 80 x 2 x 5 gal for 800 gal. It is possible. Then divide 800 by 15, you have over 53 hrs. During those 53 hrs you could get over another 160-180 gal of sap. This IS a true run but very possible. When I was on buckets I had many that gave 4 gal/day, but the avg was only about 2.5-3 on good days. At the very least I suggest you find someone near by to sell excess sap to during such times.
I had to do that last year. I had a good sap week, and on Friday I decided I had to sell some sap. My rig was boiling all day and half the night, while I hauled 1150 gal of sap to another producer who processed it. I took my half share of the syrup back, he kept half. This year even though I will have about 2.5 times as many taps on vac I should be OK because I added an RO. Even though I have a 3x8 I can only boil at 60-65 GPH (this will change if I buy new pans. Mine has a crushed section in the front of the rear pan from the original owner from when he thru wood in and hit the leading edge of the pan. This spot boils so hard and jumps so much I have not been able to fire it hard enough) New pans will give me near 80-85 GPH I expect, but that is likely 2-3 yrs away.
You might also be able to find a producer who will concentrate for you for a price. Realize, unless you can keep concentrate down to about 30 degrees it must be processed as soon as it is concentrated. ( I say this because the producer who I sold my sap to concentrated some of his sap to 8% and stored it for up to 3 days in an operating milk tank, down to 30 degrees. Some was concentrated on Wed, more on Thurs. Then at his open house on Saturday he made a real light Med A from the concentrate. Most producers don't run the bulk tanks to cool the concentrate.

[Sugarmaker]

Hicks road,
Tap them and find out! Many options! One not many of us talk about is dumping sap you cant boil. Always a option. No law says you have to boil all of it:) But the syrup makers code says if you tap it, and it runs, it need to be made into syrup at almost any cost:) You will see that later.
Hope you have fun making some great syrup in 2012. Let us know what happens!
Regards,
Chris

[smokeyamber]

Just boiling on those three days you are in for long days... I had only 31 taps and was boiling for 21hrs each time. Looong days. I loved it as others have said it is kinda like a mini-vacation bing outside. That said I did end up breaking the cardinal rule and dumping sap. I won't do that this year if I can help it, plan to go as big as my shack can hold. Likely build a 2x5 with Riley sugarbush drop-flues. Of course I could decrease my taps, but for some reason I don't think I will...

[Greenwich Maple Man]

Hicks road,
Tap them and find out! Many options! One not many of us talk about is dumping sap you cant boil. Always a option. No law says you have to boil all of it:) But the syrup makers code says if you tap it, and it runs, it need to be made into syrup at almost any cost:) You will see that later.
Hope you have fun making some great syrup in 2012. Let us know what happens!
Regards,
Chris

Dump sap!!!!!!!!! Wow,what a filthy thing to say! Sleep can be made up for sap can't.

[adk1]

YIKES mon :o

[3rdgen.maple]

Let me just say that people told me all the time I was stupid for 600 taps on a 2x6. This year Im going for 800 on the same rig. Yes it didnt get shut down for days and days on end but I will tell you I didnt dump any sap on purpose. Like Patheron always says you got to want it. 80 buckets to me on that rig is not enough lol.

[cvmaple]

i ran 68 buckets on one of those last year and it was busy. In a good year you will be extremely busy. In a bad year you will just be busy. On this topic has anybody modified a flat pan by installing flues in it or had a new pan with flues built to fit a small evaporator.

[Sugarmaker]

Hummmmm,
guess they didnt like the part about dumping sap:)
Regards,
Chris

[BryanEx]

On this topic has anybody modified a flat pan by installing flues in it or had a new pan with flues built to fit a small evaporator.
Patrick Phaneuf makes drop flue pans to fit hobby size evaporators right down to a 2x3 with a claimed 50% increase in evaporation rates.

http://www.sugarbush.info/classifieds2/custom-fabrication/p76-2x3-evaporator-pan-2in1.html

They are not cheap but they are extremely well made. I expect to be changing out to his 2x4 drop flue within the next year.

- Bryan

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

Let me just say that people told me all the time I was stupid for 600 taps on a 2x6. This year Im going for 800 on the same rig. Yes it didnt get shut down for days and days on end but I will tell you I didnt dump any sap on purpose. Like Patheron always says you got to want it. 80 buckets to me on that rig is not enough lol.

I don't know about stupid maybe idiotic or crazy:D:lol: