Cold sap??

[jstaples]

So i'm a little on the newbie side and So I've heard that adding semi-cold sap to my hot sap may down grade my syrup quality outcome. Well I recently purchased a WF Mason 2x4 XL with a 5 gallon preheater that sits on top of my pan by the smoke stack. I elbowed the stack up behind the warmer and then out of my shack...anyone have any ideas on how to preheat the sap with the WF Mason setup I have now???

[Ren]

I have never heard that one before. I used to run a 2x4 flat pan with dividers. It also had a preheater that sat on top. I made everything from extra light to amber on it. If you do a little searching on here you will find many threads about using soft copper tubing (pipe) and the smoke stack to pre heat the sap. I have about 10' of soft copper tubing running inside of the arch before it enters my float box. I just looked at your 2x4 XL because I wasn't sure what the XL was all about. That looks like it should work well. Let's use know once you get up and running!

[jstaples]

The person that told me that info also told me that the quicker you can boil off your sap to syrup the better the quality, not sure if that's true but that's what sparked my idea that maybe my sap was too cold when I put it in my pan. I'm definitely up and running. Made 3/4 gallon of light amber and 3/4 gallon of med. Things are working out good...just now it's time for some fine tuning

[Ren]

The problem with cold sap entering your pan is that it will usually knock down your boil a bit in that area. I would agree that the faster you boil off your sap to syrup, the better grade you will probably make. I am glad things are working out good for you. We are still waiting for the sap to start running.