Leaky Syrup Pan Float Box??? what the &*^%!

[MapleME]

****. Was so happy that after a 10 hour day I could fill my 40 gallon head tank and know that everything would be fine once I went inside. Came out first thing in the am and **** syrup pan float box leaked...so, yup...syrup pan now some depth as my flue pan. ****skees!

Any thoughts on that? Lappier 24x60.

Thx

I did pull of about 10 gallons of almost syrup though, and was pushing 30GPH evap rate with no blower...so all in all happy with the new rig.

[Longyearfarm]

An hour into my first boil this year I noticed a small drip on my syrup pan float box. A wiser man than me told me to let it go as the sugar would seal it up. I watched the drips get more and more frequent and then as if somebody closed a valve, it stopped just as he said. I have heard that the old timers would throw a pinch of corn meal in their pan, and this would find the hole and plug it. Good luck!

[Jec]

Hey,
When you're done boiling just flood the syrup pan by holding down the float for like 30 seconds then shut the valve off from the flue pan.
How were you getting 30 gph?

[MapleME]

Hey,
When you're done boiling just flood the syrup pan by holding down the float for like 30 seconds then shut the valve off from the flue pan.
How were you getting 30 gph?

Ahh OK. flooding it makes more sense I guess. 30 seconds? I was worried it would still be steaming for a few hours!

As for my GPH...its a crude number but I used the stopwatch on my iPhone and filled my 35 gallon head tank up. I was putting the wood right to her...fired every 6 min on the button with really nice pine and had one constant bigger piece of hardwood in there. In just over 60 min i was down to the spigot at the bottom of the barrel which sits a couple inches up... so I minus the 5 gallons that way. So not sure I could have kept up that firing rate all day just because its a ton of work, but it was great to see the entire pan jumping around like mad! I had some good flames coming out of the stack too!

So what do I do now with the flooded syrup pan Jec?

[Jec]

Uhh well you can draw off until you have the correct level. Then you can shut off the flue pan feed into the float box and as you boil slowly add the stuff you drew off back into the syrup pan. Once that is done, you can open the flue pan valve.

[PerryW]

My floats don't have a perfect seal. I always have to shut off both float valves or it would slowly trickle in overnight.

[danno]

I have never had an evap where the float would not drip overnight. Always close the valve at the end of the night. It's a mistake you usually don't make more than once. I usually leave 2-2.5" in the syrup pan with a hot arch - come back the next morning and I'm down to an inch and ready to fire back up.