Soot

[treehugger]

I saw in a fairly recent post about how much soot can affect heat transfer and which can directly effect evaporation rates. Well, I tore my evaporator apart again and notice that there was at least 1/16" of very hard caked on soot on the bottom of my syrup pand and on the underside of my flue pan. I thought they were clean all along, because I cleaned them with the flue brush. It took a paint scraper and a wire brush to do the job right. Can someone shed some knowledge as to how much soot can effect pan heating? Thanks.

[PerryW]

some guys clean the undersides of the pans several times during the season. I hate the job, so I do it once at the end of the season on my 3x10. I usually run 100-120 gallons of syrup thru it per season. I'm sure the efficiency drops some, but I really don't notice a reduced boil.

[Ed R]

I like to clean the flues at least every other boil during a normal boiling cycle and after every boil during a long boiling period. Twice this year we boiled over twenty four hrs. straight and toward the end our boil rate slowed noticably due to carbon build up. More than a couple of times we thought about shuting it down,cleaning the flues then starting back up. We decided against it because we had to much sap to run through and it would take to long to cool down. (wish we had an r.o.) I use a modified brass barbeque brush, not the plastic brushes from the supply houses. I think they work much better , plus they wont melt if it is still alittle too warm. I don't think it is necessary to clean them after every boil because it is alittle hard on the flues. Watch not to pull or hook the back metal saddle on a drop flue pan. We have a stop on our flue brush rod to prevent this from happening, plus we brush them from both ends (one long rod and one short rod with a modified saw horse in the fire box to use as support).

[highroadsyrup]

its been almost 30 years since my tech school days but I think that a 1/16" of soot is equal to an inch of insulation.

[RollinsOrchards]

I go overboard on the cleaning. As I have a batch style pan that I remove from the fire at the end of the day to empty the syrup out, I take that time to clean it up. Since I hate to end up all black i clean the soot off the bottom first. I found something on the bottom shelf at wally world called "totally awesome" cleaner that practically melts the soot. A simple scrub with a copper pad and the soot rinses off. Now I caution that:

A) Said cleaner is not listed for food contact surfaces, I only use it on the "fire" side of the pan.
B) It smells terrible, use in an extra well ventilated area.
C) I did try it in one spot on the sugar sand (I know - I ignored point A above) and it made that spot HARDER to clean.
D) It does remove the "sticky" from other surfaces, but leaves the stain behind.
E) The whole bottle was a couple of bucks, and the label includes "as seen on TV"
F) Soot was the first, and so far the only thing that it works well on. Maybe it only works on my fresh soot.

((Your results may vary. No endorsement expressed or implied. Use in a manner not supported by the label is not recommended. Use of said product on surfaces under warranty may or may not void said warranty. etc, etc, etc.))

[treehugger]

Wow, that's significant. I'm sure the "old-timer" that originally had the rig had a hard time kepping it clean. Understandable. I hope that front pan boils hard now.

[treehugger]

I'll have to look for that cleaner. Thanks for the input.

[MilesTeg]

Don't forget you have copper pans, that makes a difference in what chemicals you use to clean. Make sure what ever you buy you check the label to make sure its ok to use with copper. For example don't ever put draino in aluminum pipes because now you have created a bomb. So be careful it would be ashamed to see those good looking pans get damaged.

[nymapleguy607]

If you use any type of acid on the pans you should wash them with baking soda water to neutralize the acid. If not you could end up with a strainer instead of a pan.

[PerryW]

and don't mix ammonia & chlorox or you can die from the chlorine gas.