First boil!! On propane burners, with pics...

[Cake O' Maple]

I surrounded 2 propane burners w/ firebrick, ceramic blanket on the cement below the burners, surrounded the rubber hose of 1 burner w/ insulating firebrick (don't have much of that ) [other burner's hose is metal], washed the pans, filtered some sap, and as my neighbor put it, "fired that mother up!"

There is a leak in the left burner's connection I don't know how to fix, so put some sap in the pan to keep the pan from burning, and put the pan in place to help hold in heat.

It took just under an hour to take 13 gallons of 38-39 degree sap to a rolling boil! Burner wasn't fully open. Woof! I expect a little less time when both burners are running.

Was going to time and measure for gph, but had a problem w/ the flame after it came to a boil. Not sure what's going on; need some insight. Will post in a new thread.

TFL!!
526052615262

[Mitch]

Thanks for posting the pics. We're working on building a similar setup here, so we're very interested in seeing how others are doing their propane setups. Ours will be outside. We have a couple of these burners and a bunch of cement blocks that we're planning to use both as wind protection and to raise the whole thing up a bit so it doesn't require bending over all the time. Still need to find a source for fire bricks to surround the pan with to keep the wind out and heat in. That and figure out a scheme for putting a tarp overhead and another on the upwind side.

We haven't really decided how many trees to tap yet. We've counted about 60 within working range, but I think we're going to start smaller until we have time to build a sugarhouse and put in a wood-fired rig.

[SDdave]

Mitch,

There isn't many of us "propaners" out there, but Cake has the basics down. Build an arch (firebrick, cinderblock), allow air movement otherwise the flame will go out (it's gotta breath), MOST IMPORTANTLY PROTECT the hoses. I'll have to ask the wife if she has any pics of my set up to show you (but it's the same principal as Cake O' Maples).

SDdave

[mailman44094]

Mitch,
You can get fire brick at most places that sell cement blocks to contractors. They go for about a buck each.
TIM