Dont know if I am doIng something wrong

[Western MD Mapler]

My homemade evaporator is made from a 30/35 gallon oil drum and a ss sink that measures 15x21 by eight inches deep. First tried keeping pan/sink tucked down into barrel. Keep getting sugar burning at edges on front and rear of sink. Is there such a thing as to hot or big a fire. Also how much sap should I keep in pan (inches deep)and should I only allow a little of the pan to drop into barrel. Getting roughly 3 gallons per hr evap. Is that good for size pan that I have. Barrel was lined with fire brick and fire box was pretty much same size as pan. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Jay

[RileySugarbush]

If you insert it only a little way and you will have less burning and less evaporation.

Drop it all the way in and get more evaporation and a burn line that doesn't hurt anything. Run it as deep as you can in this case. Limit on depth is splashing out of the pan.

Search for steam table pans for lot's of discussion of this.

[Azitizz]

Got any pictures?

[Peepers]

I'd echo what Riley said - the only problem I had with the scorch line was darker syrup and cleanup. I have my sinks up higher now with only an inch hanging into the fire so less/no scorch. I stoke the fire like crazy and with about 2-3 inches of sap in the pans it boils great. If you need/want to boil off a lot of water in a short amount of time then you need the hottest fire you can get and as much surface area as you can get. More surface area = bigger pans which leads to more taps and then needing more surface area again - its a never-ending cycle if you haven't noticed yet! :)

[Greg Freeze]

That's called Maple Madness, Peepers. Like they said, if you have high heat above the sap line of the pan you will have scorching. I made great syrup last year in pans where I was scorching above the sap line. It is a little darker, but nonetheless great tasting. In my opinion, the fire can never really be too hot. Well, unless your stack starts to glow, you might want to back it off a bit. The evap rate sounds like what you could expect from your surface area. Good Luck!

Greg