Flat pan depth?

[Leo]

Hi, I am having a new flat pan made (34" X 64") what is a safe minimum depth? Is 6.5" deep enough? What depth is ideal?
Thanks!

[fishman]

Mine is 7" but I only boil with 2-3" max of sap in the pan. You should be fine with that depth. UNLESS you're one of those that like to load it up, fill up the pan and walk away for awhile.

[MapleME]

6.5" is plenty deep...You only want to run your pan as deep as you need to, and no more...so, dont think you need to fill that whole sucker with sap and try to boil it. You would be wasting a ton of energy on heating and trying to boil 6.5" of sap.

I ran a flat pan for a number of years that was 2'x6'. I usually had 2" of sap in the pan...this was for a couple of reasons. One it was a safe enough depth that when I ran out of sap, I could let the fire burn down as the sap still steamed and never get close to running out of sap in the pan. The second reason was that there was no need to have it chock-full of sap for the reason I mention above.

Remember if you run it too low, and you run out of sap...if there is any exposed pan that is not under a good amount of sap the pan will burn and be (possibly) ruined.

Make a tick mark with a sharp awl in the inside of your pan 2" up in a few places on each side. You can use this as your reference point as your boiling. This way you will always know you have enough sap in there.