D&G owners : getting a new rig .... let me know what you think .

[sappinguy]

hey guys .

found a new rig for next year by me.
in year past, i have been boiling on a 2x4 flat pan setup and am ready for a flue pan . i cant afford a new rig, so i am looking for a new one.

i found a d&g 2x6 raised flue thats about 5 years old, with galvanized-sided arch with arch board and half brick bought together with the pans. it also comes with a a stainless smoke stack , custom steam hood with stainless tube preheater inside, galvanized double steam stacks, and a 120 gallon feed tank.

all for $3,000 .

the pans are in great shape, never been scorched or abused. he is very meticulous. the only thing that took abuse was the galvanized sides of the arch , which happens to most people from heat discoloration.

i have been pricing new ones and they are all about $5,500 for a new one with arch... and that doesnt include firebrick, preheater and hood, and sometimes no stack.

the only thing weird about it is that the syrup pan has draw off boxes on diagonal opposing corners of the syrup pan in front . so to reverse flow, you have to take the pan off and turn it . i am not too worried about that since i will only have about 125-150 taps for now and our sugar sand is not bad at all . the thing thats strange to me is that the sweet sap from the flue pan FIRST enters the syrup pan in the front divider (closest to the wood loading door in front) . in other words, you draw off finished syrup in the cross flow divider closest tot he flue pan , which is also usually the hardest boiling divider of the 3 in a cross flow setup(usually). this would help keep the gradient from sweet to sugar very well, but i dont know if the hardest boiling divider is where you want your finished product to be.

most newer style pans have the piping from the flue pan go into the first divider and then finish towards the wood loading door .
the owner makes wonderful light amber stuff and i know i will be fine, i am just wondering the functionality of the pan setup... just was curious.

let me know what you think. thanks!

[SandMan]

Looks like a great deal for that price! I bought a similar sized rig last year and did have to pull out ALL the firebrick prior to moving it. Enstead of trying to match all back up I bought new firebrick, cut it and cemented it in place once it was moved. Even if your able to "lift" the rig into a trailer, a few miles on the road will crack many of the seams if the brick is left in. Not sure you would want to stress the frame of the arch with moving with bricks either. Just my thoughts.

[jdunner24]

Nice rig there had one of these 4 years ago absolutely loved it had to sell as i grew out of it looking back should have bought a r/o and kept the rig. I burnt 22" pine in it i would load it every 7mins when i loaded it i would run the 22" wood parallel in the fire box then i would cross 14" wood right in front of the door for heat on the front divider and it would boil that compartment hard. I had a hood with a homemade preheater in it made from 3/4" copper it would bring the sap in around 190. I would evap 40 to 45 gah on ave with my high at 47 made a ton of med amber on this set up hope this helps you out

[sappinguy]

thanks for the info guys . good stuff...

good to hear this rig is capable of more GPH than i thought. i was thinking of 25gph or so with natural draft but i guess the preheater/hood will help a lot .

this is just the kind of info i need.

i am building a new sugar house here in a month or so and will test her then.
any other info please tell .

[Walling's Maple Syrup]

We have always run DG evaporators. Have had good luck with them. They definitely make a great product. We are expanding our business this year and updating our current 5x14 rig with DG pans. Selling that and have already bought 2 new DG 4x14 evaporators. Love the quality. In my opinion, for 3000, you can't go wrong. Neil

[maple flats]

I think I read that more companies are making it so the syrup is drawn off closest to the flue pan. It makes sense. You have more heat back there, so getting to draw temperature should be better.

[sappinguy]

i have gone down the forced-air road in the past and dont plan on doing that with this rig ... i am not going to get to into it too much , but i feel most of your heat gets pushed right up the chimney when using the blowers that i have seen . .. and not hovering where it needs to be : under the pans. dont lambaste me .... just my opinion. natural draft is good enough for now .

last year on the flat pan 2x4 rig i went from 7gph with natural draft to about 10gph with forced air blower installed properly in the ash pan directed at the grates . one problem , i went through twice the amount of wood :o
needless to say i ran out of wood this year to heat my home since i used some of it to feed the arch last yr... and heating oil wasnt cheap .
it was annoying having to load 4-5 wrist-sized pieces every 4 minutes with an egg timer .... no time to have a beer :cry: .

anyways , i am very interested in air over fire though (AOF) .
this is a methodology used currently in all EPA wood burning stoves for your home(they call em reburner tubes) . as most on this forum , i burn 24/7 during the winter months in a wood stove, and having the newer style stoves with air over fire tubes in them works wonders compared to the old 'smoke dragon' stoves.
you will never achieve 100% efficiency in any wood stove , but these air tubes above the fire sure do help extend burn times and allow that wood to fully combust before exiting the arch, rather than creosote on your flues are ash up the stack .

ok , enough blabber. heres some pics i found on the web of a guy who had a pretty cool way of installing a blower to help ignite unburnt wood gasses passing up the arch passing the pans ...i like this and WF masons high efficiency arch as well . he packed heavy refractory cement around his pipes that run just below the pan rails that inject air at about a 30 degree angle along the length of the pan rail. pretty cool stuff . efficiency is the name of the game !

see what you think .

[jmayerl]

Those nozzles and blower would be a good start but for AOF you will need alot more nozzles and a different style of blower than a squirrel cage, they don't produce enough pressure. Just do some searchs here and you will find the info that you need to do it properly for maximum efficiency.

[sappinguy]

i saw this one below . its a manifold to go around your firebox . pretty cool .

i know theres a bunch of info on the site , i was just sharing the pics i found ... the guys design is pretty practical , but innovative .

[maple flats]

That looks sort of like how I made my AOF, except the end towards the door only goes up to the door and not full across. The nozzles should be down 6" below the pan and angle down 10 degrees. Then as mentioned above you MUST use a different fan, you need high pressure not high volume. The reason is that the fan must create turbulance in the hot gasses above the fire to fully combust them. With proper designed AOF your boil rate goes up while the fuel consumption goes down, you will boil faster and use less wood.

[sappinguy]

your boil rate goes up while the fuel consumption goes down, you will boil faster and use less wood.

thats exactly what i want . well , isnt that what we all want ? any pics of how yours is oriented around the firebox? so...6" below the syrup pan and angle 10degrees down... that would put you just above the loading door right ?

itll be fun to experiment with this .
i dont have a tig welder, but i do have a oxy/acet torch , arc and mig welder.


p.s picking up the arch and evap tomorrow. a bunch of other goodies while im there too . hope they all fit in my trailer. ...

[maple flats]

Since I have my arch open, because I sold my pans and have not yet picked up my new pans, I can get pictures. One day this week I'll get them so you can see. I followed the literature (link shown in my AOF thread when I built it 2-3 seasons ago. That link will get you all recommendations and they are different for each different width evaporator (the length seemed to make no difference). My loading door actually is higher than that. This might be 1 reason no nozzles were recommended over the door. Without measuring I'm thinking the top of the door opening is about 4" below the pans.

[sappinguy]

My loading door actually is higher than that. This might be 1 reason no nozzles were recommended over the door. Without measuring I'm thinking the top of the door opening is about 4" below the pans.

ok , that makes more sense . pics would be great! i will do a search to find your old post.

[Maple Hill]

D&G makes a great rig. I have a 5x16 and love it,especially the feature that you can run the front pan at 1 inch and the back at 1/2 inch

[sappinguy]

any pics yet of the AOF Dave ?

[maple flats]

No pics yet, I'll try tomorrow. I don't do well in heat waves and we've been in the mid 90's for 3 days with high humidity. The humidity finally started to drop late afternoon. Tomorrow is supposed to be much more bearable.
Dave