Running in St. Lawrence Co.!

[ibby458]

It took us longer than anticipated to get the last minute details cleared up, so we didn't start gathering until 4:30 pm. Due to other commitments, 2 of my older sons couldn't help, so my wife and two youngest were dumping buckets. We got 130 gallons from 100 taps, with a 2.7% sugar content.

As soon as it gets above freezing today, we'll head out to get the other 425 taps. Looking to be a great start!

[Fred Henderson]

Ibby,You must have a simle from ear to ear. We collected 200 gals yesterday and I boiled off 4-1/2 gals last night and still got some in the tank. Sugar was running 4% and better.

[Flatfoot95]

Running in Franklin County finally...running stupid too. It didn't start til about 3:00PM on Thursday. Collected about 170 gallons from 150 taps in 24 hours time...boiled 4 1/2 gallons today and have about 30gal left for tomorrow...

[ibby458]

The sap isn't just running, it's Gushing out of these trees! We gathered the 200 taps out back first, and got 220 gallons of 3.7% sap. The owner of my evaporator came over to help with the first boil, and we got off to a good start. We made 4 gallons of med Amber, but had to shut down to go gather the rest of the trees.

180 taps in a small bush and roadside trees yielded 370 gallons of 4.1% sap. My bulk tank holds 350, and my gathering tank 325. I had to leave the gathering tank 1/2 fulll until I get some boiling done today. Since I hadn't anticipated needing my other storage tank, it's not cleaned or set up yet, so we couldn't go gather the other 100 roadside taps.

I'll have a boil going in 10 minutes with the forced draft, and we'll drop the level in the bulk tank quick. We hit 50 gph for the few hours we ran it yesterday.

4:00 am. Time to go make some steam!

[Fred Henderson]

ibby . Its good to hear that things are going well for you.

[ibby458]

Hope it's going just as well for you, Fred. Thanks for the tubing drops!

We might have started out at 50 gph, but it settled into a constant 26 gph. That's WAY too slow for this unit (and the amount of sap I gotta process!). I can't put my finger on any one thing that's slowing us down, but it may be a combination of several minor problems that I can't or won't fix until I own this unit.

I boiled steadily from 4:00 am yesterday morning, til 8:00 last night. My middle boy took over and boiled to 3:00 am this morning, and there's still 200 gallons in the bulk tank. We've made 30 gallons of medium amber. No time to can it yet, but the cake shop pails hold it nicely.

While I was boiling, Beth and the boys and a ton of their friends gathered 170 gals of 4%, 145 gals of 2.3%, and 175 gals of 3.7%. I don't like gathering roadsides, but you gotta love that 4% sap!

4:30 am.. Time to make some (more) steam!

[Fred Henderson]

ibby, When and if you get that rig you let me know and I will show you how to set it up and get 50 GPH and more. Some things that are wrong with it when I looked at it, fire box way too small for a 2x9, stack dia way too small(should be 10" min and at least 18 feet high. Then you will not need that blower.

[ibby458]

Thanks Fred, I'm looking forward to hearing your ideas.

I know the firebox is too small. I'd build a new arch with straight sides and likely extend it a bit longer.

A Preheater would help A LOT. The flue pan won't boil in the center where the sap pipes come in.

I like the blower, and will probably keep it in the new design. It really pushes the heat back with no regards to barometric pressure. I regulate it by partially blocking the intake with a piece of tin. I tried a rheostat, but it stops and just hums when I tried to turn it down.

I think the front is the main problem. The doors glow red most of the time, and sparks and flame shoot out thru the 3/8" gap between the doors. I need a single, insulated door like yours.

It doesn't help that the arch sides have rust holes thru them, and the bricks have gaps. I spackle them with furnace cement if I see them shooting sparks. I won't rebuild it until I own it.

The owner insists that I run it 2" deep. I know it'll boil a lot faster at 1", but it ain't mine so I gotta run it like he says.

Because of the depth, my detention time is twice as long as it should be, and I can only draw off sporadically. I get 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 gallons per draw, but the draws are a LONG time coming. The best I've made so far is Medium amber, even on sap boiled an hour after gathering.

Still - I've made 44 gallons in 2-1/2 days, exactly the same as ALL of last year. THe sap runs have let off a bit. They gathered 210 gallons of 2.7% yesterday. Even at 26 gph, I should have that boiled off by the time we gather today.

Gotta go start the evaporator.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

You could insulate the front doors with ceramic blanket and make it to seal off the crack when the doors shut really cheap. This will keep the doors from getting so hot and keep a ton more heat inside.! :D

[ibby458]

You're right, Brandon. I'm gonna have my wife call around today to see if anyone has some ceramic blanket. I need 2 pieces about 7x12" (Gotta measure it to be sure) If I put a piece on each door, covered by SS sheeting (bolted thru the door), and leave some exposed on all sides, it ought to seal better.

I did get it up to 40 gph yesterday, solely by changing my firing pattern. I started firing it every 10 minutes with bone dry pine slabs (none bigger than 2x4"), and pushing a few pieces up under the middle (short flue) pan. I also rigged the blower so I could slow it down for firing, but never shut it off. That way, I never lose my boil (At the expense of a few singed hairs). If I don't let my boil drop off any, it'll stay around 40 gph.

Fred stopped by yesterday (Thanks Fred!) with some good suggestions that I'll use IF the guy sells this rig to me.

I had all the sap boiled by 11:30 am yesterday. After the evaporator cooled down, I checked it throughly. I fine tuned the level (it had settled a bit as the frost came out of the ground), and packed ceramic blanket pieces around where the blower comes in, and found one of my plugs had worked loose. That let raw sap mix in with the concentrated sap going into the syrup pan. That might have slowed me down a lot! I tapped it in TIGHT this time.

I noticed before start up yesterday that my syrup had run backwards thru the pans, with the liquid being the same color from the end of the syrup pan to the start of the sap pan. (Even had some color in the float box!) It had ranged from nearly clear in the sap pan to pretty much amber in the syrup pan at shutdown.

I drew an extra pail of almost syrup and set it aside, plus I put in the gate at the start of the syrup pan. That seems to help hold the concentrate in the syrup pan. I'll pour the pail back in after I get a good boil going.

Gathered 440 gallons yesterday, ranging from 2.6% to 4%. It'll average out to 3.4% One question. Does sap freely mix in a storage tank, or does it stratify by sugar content? Even with steady firing, my draws were not any where near consistent. Sometimes I got a gallon every 45 minutes, sometimes 2 gallons every 90 minutes.

Time to go make steam!

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Sounds like with the gph rate you are getting and the sugar content, the drawoff amount is about right. The sap should mix thoroughly in the tank, so it should all be the same sugar content if you are not adding more sap to the tank as you boil. :D

[ibby458]

Boiled off 440 gallons yesterday in 10-1/2 hours (including start up and shut down) I think that's about max for this rig as she sits right now. Hope the owner will sell it to me. I know I can make it better!

For the fun of it, I recorded each time I fired it. I pumped wood into it 52 times in that period. That seems to be the secret.

I gotta say - the rule of 86 is pretty darn accurate. I calculated I should make 17.5 gallons of syrup - ended up with 18 for the day. (Including what was in the pans at start-up)

Getting tired, but there's 410 gallons out there waiting for me. Gotta send the wife for jugs, cans and storage pails today. All out of places to put the syrup. Good thing the filter tank will hold a day's production!

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Ibby,

I fire mine every 7.5 minutes or 8 times @ hour by the clock on the wall and this is about perfect. The more often you fire it, the quicker it is to fire and the less wood you put in it and the less you slow the boil. :D

[ibby458]

You're exactly right, Brandon.

I did find that I had to adjust the firing frequency, depending on what I was burning. Pine slabs needed to be put in every 10 minutes. Dry split ash or maple every 15 minutes. If I tried to fire it more often, I could only get 1 or 2 pieces in, and I seemed to loose more boil by opening the doors more often.

I did start lowering the depth a little, and immediately upped my gph, and the grade went to light amber. Can't wait to buy this thing and run it the way it should be run.

Sap flow has virtually stopped for now. Only gathered 75 gallons of 2.3% yesterday. I don't mind - It'll give me time to clean the evaporator and arch inside & out. It sure needs it!

Weather Forecast looks good for a few more runs starting Sunday night. I'll hang in there until the end. Even "bootstrap" syrup has a market, and I gotta pay for an evaporator this year. (Either this one or another)

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

If you can buy it and get to run it the way you want to, I think you can do 50 gph or more if you put a blower on it. :D

[maple flats]

I fire mine every 7 minutes, and have the wood split about wrist size. It gets extremely hot that way and the boil is uniform full rolling boil on all except the sap in section. I need to work on that. I may rebuild my arch and put on an airtight homemade front to help even more and might add another flue pan to get even more or just get an RO infront of this as it sets.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

A preheater will keep the entire flue pan boiling all the time! :D

[ibby458]

No sap at all yesterday, so I quickly boiled off the 75 gallons from the day before. We hosed out the bulk tank, leaving the water in it, and started to drain the pans once they started cooling. I filtered it into 5 gallon buckets to pour back in later, Stopping when the sugar content dropped below 1%. I poured a half gallon of white vinegar in the front pan, and divided the rest into the middle and rear pans. That SHOULD soften up the sand build up. We'll be cleaning it today, inside and out, followed by a short boil with clean water. One of the great Mapletraders (Thanks Brian!) is sending me some ceramic blanket, and I hope to get the doors insulateded and sealed up by the time the sap flow starts again next week. (If it does)

The owner said he'll likely sell it to me, but we haven't dickered on price. Since he wants a lease on my fields for the next 5 years, I got a bit of an edge for negotiating.

AS soon as it's mine, I start on a new, air-tight arch, all out of stainless.

For sure, it's gonna get a hood over the back 2 pans, with a super-efficient pre-heater. I've also got a brainstorm to scavenge more heat from the stack. I put a thermometer in the stack, and when it's cooking good, it hit 950 degrees. That's a lot of heat to waste!

We sure was glad when the sap started running, but we're almost as glad that it stopped for a bit. We need a break, and to cut more wood. This thing sure is a wood-eating dragon if you're firiring it correctly!

I had a windfall yesterday. A friend that got out of sugaring a few years ago gave me a case of quart jugs, a case of pint jugs, 1/2 case of half gallon tin cans and 15 gallon tin cans. That'll save me some big bucks! THe plastic jugs were all in sealed bags inside a sealed box. THe opened boxes of tin have some dust on them, but nothing a good hot water rinse won't take care of.