Drum Evaporator

[RC Maple]

I picked this evaporator up at an auction. Should the inside have fire bricks inside it? Should anything at all be done to the inside? There is a plug in the 4th picture (verticle piece) between the two pans. What is this used for? Does anyone have one of these that may have advice to offer?

[smokeyamber]

Looks like it is setup as a simple divided pan, you put the fresh sap in the left pan and as you boil the right pan will get sweeter and you can draw from that side. The plug is for when you shut down to keep the sweeter stuff from mixing and also as you get closer to the end of your sap you can install the plug and ladle out the left side into the right and just fill the left with water. Having done batch boiling with steam pans this is very much the same setup, just with less scooping <G>. Good beginner setup, that you WILL upgrade <G>.

[RC Maple]

It looks like you have a barrel evaporator. There isn't much room in there to add anything but wood. Does yours have any fire brick or insulation? I'm looking forward to test boiling this thing and then seeing how it works with real sap. Thanks for the info.

[smokeyamber]

I have firebrick in my barrel setup, mine uses two restaraunt pans so I move the sap from back to front and draw off the front pan. I see your's has ceramic blanket which serves the same purpose. You may want to line the firebox area with bricks to protect the blanket a bit. Also you can make the bottom slop upward towards the back to force the heat up against the pan more. I used perlite to make the slope and laid half thickness firebricks over it. It worked good and lets me dismantle the barrel for the off season. I empty it out and then oil up the barrel to keep it from rusting. I also added a blower last season to help a bit with the boil rate. I figure the best I every got was around 5gph, so figure some long days/nights if you are boiling alot of sap.