Homemade pan

[lfdiaff]

I am new at syrup making. I did about 2 gallons of syrup in my turkey fryer in the driveway last year and plan to build a bigger setup this year just have a few questions. I am going to use a fuel oil barrel as my arch. Im going to line the sides with fire brick and have a grate and cleanout for the ashes. My question is with the pan. I dont understand the divided pan. Should I make one big pan it will be about 27" x 40" or divide it? What is the point of the divided pan and how should I go about building them. I dont understand how this works. Thanks for the help.

[sugar ED]

Hi Ifdiaff
There are many ways u could go about dividing the 27"x40" If you can do 2 pans with pan gasket between ,one syrup pan 27x24 divided (sug. two dividers = 3 channals ) With draw offs at ops.corners and a rear sap pan 27"x16" (easer to reverse flow (on syrup pan) with two pans ).
But if ONE pan divided with two dividers = about 9inch wide channals front to rear , with a square hole at ops.ends of dividers , HOW IT WORKS -sap enters rear of arch/pan, first channal heads to front of pan ,then thru hole in divider and back to the rear of pan (getting sweeter as it goes) thru last hole in divider into last channal and back to front , at this point headed to the draw off valve and this is the channal that needs to be tested and watched closely , as it can turn to sugar quikly or burn ,Some draw off just befor syrup and finnish on gas (as it is hard at first to get just right syrup (67 %) on the wood ,(In fear of burnning pans/syrup) Theres alot of good info on this site ,Hope this helps .and good luck tapping/sappin ,Ed