Flat Pan: Can I draw off?

[SugarMama]

We have a 2x4 Flat pan on a old oil tank. I guess you can say that we have over tapped and ended up with a lot more sap than planned. Being that we have a flat pan am I able to cook down 100 gallons or so, shut it down let it cool and boil some more off the next day?

We have never finished on the pan I have always moved it to the stove. What temp do I Draw off at or do I need to finish the entire batch on the pan?

[adk1]

you need to get the temp up to 219, depending on barametric pressure. Water boils at 212 when the barometric presure is 29.92Mb.

[MapleME]

Sugar, yes you can draw off- I did this thing for years. Just pull off what you think is close and set it aside and keep it cold. Boil the rest and once you get it all down to near syrup, finish it on your stove or maybe in a turkey fryer burner outside for the last final degrees.

[adk1]

I guess I always figured you could finish off the evap. why wouldnt you be able to?

[MapleME]

I guess I always figured you could finish off the evap. why wouldnt you be able to?

By finishing "off" the evap, your actually trying to say "why can't you finish ON the evaporator" right?

Well, my experience has been that evaporators are for you to do your rough boiling and you need something like a finisher or your stovetop to do the last couple of degrees. I don't think that its that you CANT do it on the evaporator, but you just have almost zero control over the temps at any given time. SO in theory, you run the risk of having things go bad and overcooking your syrup etc because you have such little control. Maybe the bigger rigs with multiple syrup pans have more control or oil rigs have more constant heat but us woodies have the least control.

Finisher or pot on your stove= good idea.

[PerryW]

We boiled for several years (in my childhood) on a 2x4 flat pan on a 275 gallons oil tank arch. We soldered a divider in the pan so that about 20% of the pan was a separate compartment with it's own draw off. We were never able to make syrup because the level would get too shallow (even with the small syrup compartment).

Check the temperature of boiling water at your location (on the day you are boiling), then add 7 degrees F to get the corrected syrup boiling temp for your altitude and barometric pressure.

[MapleME]

Check the temperature of boiling water at your location (on the day you are boiling), then add 7 degrees F to get the corrected syrup boiling temp for your altitude and barometric pressure.

Better yet, just get a hydrometer and cup and do it right

[SugarMama]

How long can I go without needing to clean out the nitre from the bottom of the pan? We have 700 Gallons to boil down, and I could keep adding to it if the sap keeps flowing. Won't my pan eventually scorch? Will it darken my syrup. I'm confused as the how this would work compared to a compartment pan with continous flow.

[twofer]

A 2x4 with 700 gallons to boil.............holy lots of boiling batman!

[SugarMama]

Crazy Right! My husband bet me that I could I not find us more trees to tap, Well I guess I showed him..... now Im paying for it trying to figure out how on earth I;m going to boil this **** down on a 2x4 with out staying up for 4 days straight. Coffee pot is brewing. Luckly its really cold here right now,. we have ice building in our 55 gallon drums. A side from taking the rest of the season off Any other ideas?

[MapleME]

Mama, one way is to increase your boil. Make sure you are running your pan shallow enough that you don't have wasted sap in there... I ran my flat pan at 1.5-2". Also, lets get you some more air to your fire. Take a small house fan (like a small 6" or 8" desktop fan) and point it at your ash pan door so you are adding some additional forced air to your fire. Make sure your using dry wood, cut to thin pieces (like wrist size is a good rule)...and keep the fire hot. Feed it on regular intervals. Also, consider how you are adding raw sap. You can preheat it which makes your boil more efficient and if you can't pre heat just make sure you are drizzling it in so your not killing your boil.

Those are some simple things you can do/make sure you are doing with little investment and time and energy that can add up to a big help.

[PerryW]

it would take around 50-70 hours to boil 700 gallons on a flat pan 2x4 so I'd get boiling and fast. And for gawd sakes throw out the ice! If fact Throwing out the Ice is sometimes called Poor Man's R.O.

We would make about 15-20 gallons per season on our old 2x4 flat pan and we never cleaned the pans mid-season, but if you are worried about dark syrup, boiling the sap quickly is the more important.

[MapleME]

it would take around 50-70 hours to boil 700 gallons on a flat pan 2x4 so I'd get boiling and fast. And for gawd sakes throw out the ice! If fact Throwing out the Ice is sometimes called Poor Man's R.O.

I second Perry!! Toss that ice. Its only frozen water, very little sap freezes so its a waste of time to boil anything frozen especially in your situation.

[jfroe939]

For the last 10 years, my dad and I have cooked done 8-10 gallon batches on a 2.5 x 6 flat pan. This is just how we've always done it and how we'll keep doing it. We certainly use a hydrometer. After every 8-10 gallon batch we'll wash it out. I wouldn't go past 10 gallons in a batch because after that the syrup's cooled enough to make the last gallon or two tough to filter... especially if you run into sugarsand. Gotta have someone rinsing prefilters and another overseeing the syrup going into the orlon filter. If we're going 16-17 hour days boiling hard, we can probably get 220+ gallons boiled away so you surely have your work cut out for you. My advice would be to store your sap somewhere deep in the evergreens and put whatever snow you have around that container(s) and then maybe tarp it. Older sap is still better than spoiled sap. Even if it turns out dark, there's plenty of people who enjoy and prefer dark amber. I think it's so funny how people are enamored with making light syrup (I'm not aiming this at you, more just folks in general). Without question, 80%+ syrup consumers I run into prefer at least dark amber given the choice. So don't fret the oft-hated "batch" syrup. -to each his own.
There's no trick to evaporating 700 gallons on a 2x4 in short order. Just keep boiling until you can't. Maybe work shifts with someone else so you can boil into the morning and go to sleep before dawn and have someone fresh to pick up when you're done. If you can, buy a coil of small diameter copper (1/4" maybe?) and wrap it tight to the stack and have a feeder tank drizzle sap in as a pre-heater to keep your boil going. Copper requires direct contact with the stack to transfer the most heat so keep it constricted tight. have fun not sleeping!

[Vermont Creation Hardwood]

When you have a small evaporator like yours, it's silly to try to imitate a large evaporator in technique. Batch boil. On mine, which is larger than yours and has two pans, I fill the pans up and feed the fire. No need to sit there watching it, go do other chores. Come back every fifteen minutes to half an hour and add more wood. Add more sap as it boils off. I run 80 to 100 gallons of sap through, then let the sap boil down to near to syrup. When it's near and the fire is nearly out, I draw it off, 2 to 5 gallons worth. This I'll finish on the stove inside. You can rinse out the pan quickly or just add more sap to begin a new batch.

This way you don't have to sit there and watch the boil until you're ready to finish it to near syrup. It never foams since you're not running it lean. I can even fill up the arch, sleep for three to four hours, and fill up the arch again. If you have plenty of sap in the pans, you can catch your zzz's and still get some boiling done.

[Burnt sap]

I agree with VCH, batch on that set up is the way to go.

[RollinsOrchards]

My flat pan setup is 30" by 41" giving about the same surface area as 2' by 4', and is also on a 275 gallon oil tank evaporator. I have only boiled on it 8 or 10 times, so I may not be a complete expert.

I take 100 to 125 gallons of sap per boil, and stop putting wood in when i have at least 15 gallons of sap left to trickle through the preheater kettle, or want to quit in 2 hours The bed of coals will evaporate that mostly down. I let it steam until there is maybe three quarters of an inch left in the bottom of the pan. I then remove the pan from the stove and ladle the syrup out for finishing on the propane stove. This gives me 4 gallons of syrup like substance that will need to be finished into about 3 gallons of finished syrup.

I am not able to get any satisfactory hydrometer readings from anything in the pan. I am afraid that if i get it close to syrup it will shoot on past before i can pull the pan off. so I generally go by volume reduction and sheeting off a spoon behavior to make sure i don't go too far on the wood fired pan, and prefer to finish where the propane burner is more easily controlled, and the light is better for reading the hydrometer.

The firebrick and coals will hold a lot of heat, so i am afraid of scorching the pan if the "syrup" is removed from the pan while it is still hot, and given that it is a flat pan i have not figured out how to add sap to one corner while ladling the syrup out of the other.