How much to fill / sweeten a 2x5 ?

[smokeyamber]

Ok, making a big upgrade from 2 steam pan barrel to a 2x5 this year. How much does it take to fill the 2x5 and sweeten it ? No flues just flat pans. I'm shooting for a 10gph rate , is this a good guess ?

Thanks to all who enabled this addiction... :mrgreen:

[PerryW]

I guess my definition of Sweetening the pans means firing up the evaporator and boiling for a while but not having enough sap to actually make any finished product. You would probably only need 30 or 40 gallons to do this on a 2x5.

If you want to know how much sap you need to actually make any syrup, it would depend on your method of finishing.

Since it will probably be tough to actually finish directly on a flat pan 2x5, you will probably end up doing the final finishing on the kitchen stove.

You probably want to keep your depth around 2 inches which is about 13 gallons of sap.

[smokeyamber]

Thanks, the 2x5 is a connected setup, 2x2 syrup and 2x3 back pan. I can close off one pan from another, so could I finish off the front pan while having the back flooded ? I have done batching so far so finishing inside is not big deal either ...

[PerryW]

Some guys seem to be able to finish on rigs this size (even the half-pints) but I know they run them pretty shallow to do so.

[xulgiy]

I have 2x5 with flues and it takes 10ga to fill the pans and about 40 to sweeten. I finish off the pans, simply because any draws I do are small, and I want a final product for my days boiling to be all the same. I take little draws pretty often and then finish in a pot on a gas burner.