Firing an evaporator on wood chips

[nymapleguy607]

So with all the talk over the new pellet fired evaporators it has got me thinking. Has anyone ever expierimented with burning woodchips and just loading them into the fire similar to burning coal? We have quite a few bruch piles through out the woods from the tree branches and things that are too small to make fire wood. I was thinking if it was chipped it could be used to fire the evaporator after you had a bed of coals. They should give off quite a bit of heat especially if they are dry. Thoughts?

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

At one point, Paul Smiths College in the Adirondacks fired their evaporator using wood chips. Chipped the slabs from their sawmill operation. Don't know if they still do or not. I think the problem is having the chips dry enough.

[maple flats]

VVS school, where the winter maple conference in Jan. is every year, burns chips. Theirs is designed to burn chips. It is auger fed. I went to a demo in Jan. They said the chips can be abywhere from 15% to 30% moisture for best results. It feeds them in continuously by the auger from a large hopper. It was not yet set up in Jan. but they said they were getting a conveyor system to feed the hopper. I think it was a CDL arch, the first set up in the US, designed specifically for chips. I was not impressed with the burn rate but then it was just being set up and the hopper was fed by students using 5 gal pails filled by shovel.

[Mark]

I have been burning chips for 13 years and wouldn't do anything else.

[nymapleguy607]

Has anyone tried just throwing them into the evaporator just replacing there stick wood?

[wiam]

I have been burning chips for 13 years and wouldn't do anything else.


Please tell us more. Is your rig designed for chips or a homemade set up?

[Mark]

Please tell us more. Is your rig designed for chips or a homemade set up?

I built the arch, burner and it is designed for chips. It is about 4 million btu's. The evaporator is not real fast, it does about 300 gph. Dry chips are faster but have not put a flow gauge on it to find out exactly how fast it is. I can make 4000 gallons of syrup with 16 brix sap and one semi load of chips. I can get them delivered for about $800. Next purchase is a wood chipper. The bigger the chips the better.

[wiam]

Is it something the average guy could build?

[Mark]

Is it something the average guy could build? You could build one but your time would probably be better spent doing something else to increase you syrup production and buy a factory made rig. Looking back I would have been better off hanging more tubing first.

I have a bit of money into it. Burner is made out of 1/2" and 1/4" thick 304 stainless tubes that are 27" and 33" diameter $$. The inside chambers are made from 3/16 mild steel and weight a lot. I had an overhead hoist to lift them. A locale welding shop that was owned by a friend did all the bending for me. They also did some plasma cutting of the stainless parts. Another friend loaned me a plasma cutter to do the rest. Just getting it into the sugarhouse was a job. I was able to get it of a tilt flat bed but it took a couple days winching it into the building.

I may build another one next summer, I have some changes I would like to make that I came up with over the last 12 years.