fireing

[patrick81]

with out a stack temp ive been fireing my rig about every ten min. does this sound about right? ive have a few times now seen two or three foot flams comeing out of the top of the stack. and im haveing a hard time to really to get my front pan rollling i have two 30x18 syrup pans in the front and then a 30x5 flue pan but my second syrup pan boils to no end witch is good but my draw off is in my front pan witch really sucks is there any way that the way im fireing my rig is doing this ? next yr im hoping to have new pans for it if i can find some at a reasonable price.

[PerryW]

here's a couple suggestions:

1) Try closing the damper up more to keep the heat toward the front.

2) DOn't throw the wood in too far. Keep the wood as close to the front as possible (so it almost touching the doors.

3) Make sure you burn dry wood split small.

[Brent]

Fire more frequently and put in smaller amounts of wood. If you pile it up high and close the the bottom of the pan the hottest part of the flame will be way
back from the front, making the back boil harder and the front poorer. The hottest part of the flames are near the tips so you want the tips to lick the bottom of the front pan ... therefore less wood, lower wood pile and more frequent additions of smaller loads. This will also make more consistent boils with less variation in peak and lowest temperatures and give you more consistent draws.

[RollinsOrchards]

Adding to the above excellent advice:

Pull the flaming sticks back against the door and add the newest sticks above and behind them. This takes the fire through the newest wood.

Otherwise you have cold wood under the front of the pan, and the heat of the fire comes out under the back just before going up the stack.

[SeanD]

I had a helper fire during a boil. Before I realized what was happening, he was throwing wood into the box like it was a locomotive - all hardwood, all thrown to the back. I caught a glimpse of the firebox just as he was shutting the door and could see it was stacked in the back.

As soon as he shut the door the jet engine noise grew louder and louder. I thought the thing was going to explode. The entire base stack glowed red and the probe stack therm. passed 1400 deg.

Here's the weird/learning part: The boil in the front pan stayed the same and the back pan died, just went flat. All of the heat was racing up the stack so fast, none of it was transferring to the pan.

I think this goes along with the advice everyone has offered.

Sean