Bricking a 2x8

[blac]

I am in the process of bricking my cdl 2x8 deluxe and I look at the arch and think that the wall should direct flame up in the flue pan a bit farther forward? Am I wrong? The flue pan has raised flues and is 5 foot I am bricking it according to the vauge instructions that came with it. All the bricks are almost cut and dry fit but I keep looking at it scratching my head. Am I overthinking this.....

[maple flats]

In the arch, you do want to push the heat up as much as possible, but it can be overdone. When I bricked my 3x8 (3x2 syrup and 3x6 raised flue), I pushed the heat up too soon. I built a wall, vertical at the back of the firebox, 30" from the feed door. I went up to within 5" of the bottom of the raised flues and ramped up to 1/4" in the next 8" towards the back. This proved to be too fast. The extreme boil at the top of the wall created such forceful geysers that I lost a lot of sweet, even though I made deflectors to direct the flow from the geysers back into the pans. I then cut the wall to 6" from the pans and ramped it over the next 12" to the same 1/4" clearance and things ran far better. Judging by the slope indicated by the ramp in the tin on the arch, the wall might rise only to about 12" under the pans and then ramp up the rest of the way over the next 18 or maybe even 24". On my old rig as described above I think the wall to 6" under and then ramp up over the12" was best. The void created was filled with vermiculite and capped with half brick and dry refractory, lightly misted a few times to get it to set hard to keep the vermiculite in the arch and not up the stack. Check out a greenhouse supply house such as Milikowski. They have LARGE bags if vermiculite to fill the void at far less than any local garden center. You can use either fine or course, either suits the purpose. My 3x8 used 3 big bags if I remember right., a 2x8 might thus use 2 bags. 6 yrs ago I think 4 CF bags ran about $20 each. I used course. I see they now show 4 cu ft bags at 24.58 course and 17.39 fine. They were out of fine when I got mine and I did not want to have to wait.

[blac]

Yeah I have about half my flue pan exsposed to the fire box before it ramps up, and it looks like the rear will really get it and the front is the same as the 2 syrup pans. From what I understand you must have an area open 1/3 the length of the rear pan in front of the wall? So from the back of my syrup pan to the wall on the ramp can be no less than 20 inches in my case. Does that sound right?

[blac]

Well I bricked it all up somewhat similar to what maple flats had noted after looking at some pictures and a little sugarhouse engineering. At the back of the firebox a wall ramps up to within 6 inches of the flue pan and tapers rather quickly to within 1 inch. At the rear of the flue pan 5 1/2 inches are opened for gasses to escape. I also test fired it this past weekend and with a short first run it boiled 29 gallons in about a half hr with pine. Sunday I refired with hardwood and pine mix and achieved 62 gal/hr firing rather aggressively, the flue pan boiled throughout from front to back with a good boil. My syrup pan next to the flue pan boiled ok but my front syrup pan took a while to get going, is this normal or do I have too much draft? I will try to get some pics up soon.

[blac]

Couple pics.