Cooling Sap

[nymapleguy607]

Hey everyone, I had a thought the other day on how I could keep the sap cold at the sugar house while its waiting to be boiled. My holding tank is a 400 gallon insulated bulk tank that has the copper jacket. What I want to try is to plumb the cooling jacket up to a small circulation pump and then circulate water from an old water tank through the copper and use that to cool the sap. Has anyone tried this before? I thought about adding some rv antifreeze in the water tank to keep things flowing. Thanks

Jeff

[jasonl6]

You could also freeze 5gallon blocks of sap in a chest freezer and just toss them into your tank. Last year we had some buckets that froze and we tossed the ice right into the tank. 5 days later there were still chunks floating around in there.

Jason

[Brent]

You might consider a giant cooler. We used them fishing in the Florida Keys. Inside about 40-45" X 16" x 16".
They would hold sap cool for quite a while. They're light and easy to clean. I wish I had thought of this before I bought
a stainless one ... that gets tons of condensation on it an drips all the time. Google "coolers for fishing" and you'll see tons of selections.

[GramaCindy]

You could also freeze 5gallon blocks of sap in a chest freezer and just toss them into your tank. Last year we had some buckets that froze and we tossed the ice right into the tank. 5 days later there were still chunks floating around in there.

Jason


LIKE! me too! Worked great.

[Ausable]

Hey everyone, I had a thought the other day on how I could keep the sap cold at the sugar house while its waiting to be boiled. My holding tank is a 400 gallon insulated bulk tank that has the copper jacket. What I want to try is to plumb the cooling jacket up to a small circulation pump and then circulate water from an old water tank through the copper and use that to cool the sap. Has anyone tried this before? I thought about adding some rv antifreeze in the water tank to keep things flowing. Thanks

Jeff

Jeff - I like the way You think. I am assuming your holding and feed tanks are outside. If this is the case - during freezing weather you will have no need to cool them down and thus no need for RV anti-freeze in Your cooling water supply tank. In the warmer weather if your circulate cold water from your tank and thru coils in your sap tank and back to your water tank the temperatures will equalize in both tanks if you continue to recirculate the same cooling water thru the sap tank and back again------You would have to have a continuous supply of water colder than your sap for this to work. Me thinks the Cuunk of frozen sap idea - already suggested - is probably the most practical. However being an old Electric Generating Plant Operator - The talk of Condensers and Heat Exchangers has appeal to me ------lol----Good Luck

[rchase]

If you could find a spring close by. You could run that water thought an exchanger in your sap tank.

[nymapleguy607]

I've heard of people cooling liquid ring pumps this way, if the water tank was open I think it would take a while to equalize. The biggest problem is when the sun is real bright on the top of the tank, the covers act just like a blanket so I thought if I used the existing tank plumbing it might keep the sap slightly cooler. This would be the most helpful if I didn't get all the sap boiled the same day as it was collected.

[Bruce L]

One thing to think about in regards to the blocks of sap ice is to remove them at the end of the day's boiling.We have collected ice cakes out of the buckets before and placed them in the sap,but if they remain there after your tank is empty the heat from the day's boiling will continue to melt them,where the melted sap will then freeze up in your lines overnight.

[afretired]

I had talked with some people the other day and they said they cooled and stored their sap in a milk cooler. So I bought me another 400 gallon milk tank with compressor and I'm going to hook it up. First I have to beef up my loft floor in my sugar shack to hold the extra weight of a milk tank and 400 gallons of sap. By putting the tank in the loft I do away with the barrel I have up there to gravity flow to the cooker and also the sump pump setup to keep the barrel full. And if I get enough sap I still have the 500 gallon tank out back.

David

[jasonl6]

While i think it's great to keep that sap cool for storage i would caution about keeping it cool when boiling. Everyone works hard to get there sap as hot as they can when it comes into the evaporator (either by preheater or by steam away). IF your dumping nearly frozen sap in you might be hurting the performance of your evaporator.

Jason

[sapsucker78]

While i think it's great to keep that sap cool for storage i would caution about keeping it cool when boiling. Everyone works hard to get there sap as hot as they can when it comes into the evaporator (either by preheater or by steam away). IF your dumping nearly frozen sap in you might be hurting the performance of your evaporator.

Jason

That is a very good point! Why not just cook it down right away? Cold sap will also slow down the performance of your RO.