Leader Inferno Arch

[sjdoyon]

Recently set up our operation and installed a 3x10 Inferno for a little over 4,000 taps. Anyone experience any issues with their arch? Pros/Cons.


3x10 Inferno Arch
4,000+ taps
(3) 1,500 gallon SS tanks
1,100 permeate tank
10hp vacuum pump
Lapierre 600 gph RO

[Brent]

it will boil faster. the faster you run the blower the hotter it goes but being all air under the fire, it will go through wood at an ungodly rate. mine has been modified to capture some of the air from the blower in a 4" pipe and take it through a plenum into 2" square tubes that surround the door and inject a fair bit of the air over the fire. It's not as good as the best ideas today for air over fire, but it will really help reduce the wood consumption and still boil a great rate.

[christopherh]

Brent did you modify that yourself? I'm considering an inferno, is it worth the extra money, or will a blower on a traditional wood arch do the same thing?

[Brent]

Most of the work was done by the folks in Vermont that I bought it from second hand. I modified their work to force far more air through the nozzels around the door and planned to put in the same stainless round tubes that I had in my 2x6 .. but got a hernia right at the beginning of the season that kind of slowed down the ambitions. The Inferno as produced by Leader was good technology for 8 or 10 years ago. It's not worth buying one today. Leader, and all the other major builders have better designs now that put most of the air over the fire. I have no comment about which of them is best .. that's another discussion. But there are lots of things you can do yourself. Many Traders have had pretty good success. Most welded in tubes and welded nozzles to them. I like the round stainless tubes because I could turn them to direct air up or down in the firebox, and take them out easily to drill more or bigger holes, or plug them or easily just by a new tube and slip it into position if I thought the old ones were screwed up beyond recovery. Pretty cheap and flexible. The problem is that other than papers done years ago, there has been nothing published about the mix of air over vs air under, how much, and where to aim the air. So I consider it's all an ongoing experiment. Trial and error. In 5 years we should have a real good idea what works best, but until then, I want flexibility ( 2 cents pls )

[Brent]

PS Having run my 2 x 6 with the stainless tube rig, I am totally convinced that anything that needs an airtight arch is blowing to much air in and blowing too much heat up the stack. There is at least one other member that did mods with most air over the fire and like me, he can open the door to fire without turning the blower off. My feeling is that we increased the boil rate on the 2x6 by about 25% and cut the wood use in half. I was really pleased with the result, but not convinced it was ideal. More playing ahead.

[christopherh]

Thanks! Thats some good info for me!

[ToadHill]

We had a 5x14 Inferno. It is a very fast boiling rig. It does go through a lot of would and it will blow large chunks of hot coals up the stack. You don't want anything near the sugarhouse that you are afraid of catching fire. Also, the heat puts a huge stress on the front of the arch. It crack near the weld where the front and the sides join. This is a common problem and Leader is aware of it and will fix it. We now have a smaller Vortex with an RO. I'm not so sure that we go through less would than a comparably sized Inferno would, but it does burn the wood much more completely, i.e. no chunks of coal up the stack. We've only had it for one year and we need to put in more taps to really test it. So far we only run it for about 2-3 hours at a time. To be really efficient you need to run it longer because it takes awhile to get everything up to temp and evened out. For short boils you no sooner get up to temp and you need to start shutting down. Not an efficient way to run a wood fired rig. The Inferno didn't take as long to start up and shut down. Also, the Vortex is considerably more expensive.

[sjdoyon]

Randy,

Appreciate the comments. We heard similar comments regarding the intensity of heat. We are situated about 1900' on the side of a mountain so no worries of catching anything on fire of value and only access is on ATV/snowmachine in the spring. Not much chance of the fire dept. showing up. We put up about 30 cords this summer, going to be discouraging if we use it all.

Gorgeous sugarhouse you have.



3x10 Inferno Arch
4,000+ taps
(3) 1,500 gallon SS tanks
1,100 permeate tank
10hp vacuum pump
Lapierre 600 gph RO
Northeast Kingdom