Raised flue bricking

[YAZER]

On the front ramp leading up to the flue pan it appears(from pictures) that most leave a large gap going up into the flue pan and then a much smaller gap(about the size of the rectangular base stack) for the rear ramp.

Is it wise to use firebrick in some manner to channel the flame up into the flue pan sooner.. It seems that at the point of the front ramp and where it levels out even with the arch rails the you have missed 1/2 of your flue pan.

What do others do for the front ramp?

Thanks,
Greg

[sugarsand]

YAZER, our raised flue has about a 16 to 18 inch opening on the front and the same or a little less by the stack. I insulated and bricked the ramp horizonal with the last row of bricks put in vertical and slightly tipped forward towards the doors. This seems to direct the heat more straight up into the flue. I filled the arch with sand to within a half inch of the flue. The flues are 8ft and we get a monster burn once heated. Hope this helped, if you need more details send me a PM or call.

sugarsand

[maple flats]

I have about 5" above my back wall in my firebox (my high pressure AOF nozzles are 6" below the pans) and then it is ramped up to about 1/4" under the flues of my raised flue pan. This goes back to where it drops down to go up the stack. This spot is about 8" forward of the stack collar. This gives me a good hard boil the entire length of the syrup and flue pans. Before I had AOF I ramped up from about 8" to 1/4" and the ramps then and now are at about 35 degrees rise. I had tried at one time going even higher up before starting the ramp but it proved to put too much heat at the extreme front edge of my flue pan. At that time my syrup pan was only 2' long and my flue pan was 6'' I have now bought new pans and I have 3' and 5' pans, a more typical ratio.

[Thiems sugarshack]

Could anyone post a pic of the way they did there arch I still cannot picture what you guys are saying.I just got a leader 2 by 6 max flue with a four foot flue raised flue pan and the raised flues are new to me as my other evaporators have beed drop flue. Thanks in advanced

[Middleton Maples]

Go to page 2 on this forum. Look for "This is how I bricked up my lapierre 2'x8' storm" I posted pictures that could help.

[maple flats]

Look in my photobucket http://s1041.photobucket.com/albums/b418/Daveandjoanssugarhouse/. The high pressure pics show it fairly well. If you look at the pic of the back of the fire chamber with the nozzles showing, the nozzles are down 6" below the pans and the ramp starts about 1" above the nozzles. The nozzles point down 10 (or was it 15 ?) degrees if I recall correctly.