Pellet arch journal

[tuckermtn]

First real step in the process today (other than placing the order for the arch)

Picked a 7ft x 3 ring grain bin silo today up in Northern Vermont. It is bigger than I need for a season worth of pellets, so we will likely take one or two of the "rings" out of the middle of the bin.

My girls think it looks like a rocket laying down on the trailer...

Cost: $2200 + tank of gas for the Tacoma (new was quoted $3700 for 5 ton bin with auger) Defintely more than a 275gal oil tank.

Plan is to use the bin after we are done using it for maple to feed a pellet fired boiler to heat our house.

[tuckermtn]

80028003

Stopped in at the CDL arch factory this morning as my arch was rolling off the production floor. Samuel and Charles spent a good chunk of time explaining the arch and its operation to me. White plastic is to protect stainless in production.

CDL was setting up for their open house this weekend and they had on display several evaporators including a new wood fired high efficency arch...but I will let samuel explain it...

[tuckermtn]

Arch arrived on Oct 10th. Used a buddy's roll-back truck to off-load it from the 53ft and then rolled off on the new slab.

Mark spent some time framing up the addition for the auger/bin set up last week.

My brother and some friends came up Friday and set to work on shortening the silo by one "ring" (32" of height) and then trying to figure out how to move it in to place and stand it up. After some head scratching we finally footed the silo against the slab and reached over to top of the roof with the truss jib and pulled the silo up.

worked yesterday and today on positioning the auger from bottom of silo in to the day bin which will feed the arch from the back.

Also electrician was at it yesterday begining to hook up 200 amp panel at the sugarhouse.

[tuckermtn]

couple of photos of the auger, feed bin and arch.

Red auger will pull pellets from silo (6+ ton capacity in silo) and drop them in to 180lb. capacity day bin. Rig is supposed to burn 100 lbs. of pellets an hour. Day bin has auto fill sensor on it. Day bin then has 3ph VFD controlled gear reduction motor and long auger tube to pull pellets to front of the arch in to burn chamber. Arch insulated like oil arch with just cereamic blanket.

[heus]

Looks great Eric. You dont see many grain silos next to a sugar house.

[PerryFamily]

Looking great. Cant wait to hear how it performs for you

[bees1st]

I love looking at pictures of progress. Thanks for keeping us up to date. Looks great !

[DrTimPerkins]

Nice looking rig.

[tuckermtn]

MArk and another friend Andy worked yesterday and today on removing the wheels, leveling the arch, and cutting to length auger and auger tube.

photos are of mark cutting auger tube, auger out the front of fire box (burn pot removed to allow cutting auger to length) and the feed bin in place off the back of the evaporator. The red pipe coming through the wall is the auger that moves pellets up out of bottom of 6+ ton silo just outside.

Need to still set up blower and insulate/soundproof blower cabinet, and wire up everything before we set pans on the arch. But getting closer...

[gmcooper]

Eric,
Thanks for posting all these pics and updates! Really nice to see everything in progress. I have been considering a pellet fire evaporator this year and now that my free wood supplier just sold his saw mill I may have to start thinking a bit more. Hoping it works for you as planned!
Mark

[twobears1224]

TUCKERMTN:wrote.. (burn pot removed to allow cutting auger to length could you get a pic of the burn pot??..I,am curious as to how it,s made.

[tuckermtn]

Busy day for us at Tucker Mtn Maple. Had Samuel from CDL spend a good chunk of the day working with us to demonstrate the operation of our new pellet evaporator. Had to adjust the position of the ramp to bring more of the boil toward the front. Thanks to Samuel for all his advice and insights on tuning the new rig.

Also had our 6.5 tons of pellets delivered by Sandri Fuels out of western MAss. They deliver New England Wood Pellets. The arch is spec'd to burn 100 lbs. of pellets an hour, so the 6.5 tons should get us 130 hours of boiling (that is if everything is running optimally)

Some photos attached...

[nymapleguy607]

Looks like that will boil some sap, do you think you will need to refill the pellets during the season?

[tuckermtn]

Jeff - we should be good with one fill. 130 hrs of boiling producing an average of 6 gallons of syrup per hour would be an excellent season for us...not out of the question, but that would be pushing it...

-Eric

[BAP]

Buying pellets in bulk like that, what did you have to pay? Do they charge for delivery or is it in the price per ton?

[tuckermtn]

The pellets were 215 a ton, plus 250 for delivery. So 250ish for bulk pellets. I know you can get cheaper pellets in bags, but I didn't (and cant) deal with bags.

For same BTUs in oil it would have been $1300 more. Samuel was relaying a story about a producer in Quebec (one of the owners of CDL) that has something like 90,000 taps and switched to pellets from oil. He saved $40,000 last year in fuel costs. Having said all that, it wasn't really about saving money that I switched to pellets. it was about fueling our evaporator with a locally sourced renewable fuel that is produced in an industry that puts food on my family's dinner table every night.

[maple flats]

I've seriously considered pellets in the future. I also like the local aspect, and there is at least 1 pellet manufacturer in less than 40 miles. My second reason I like the idea of pellets is the noise factor. Every oil fired rig I've seen had a fairly loud roar while in operation, noise above my enjoyment level. The one pellet/chip rig I visited ran much quieter. Since I have a sawmill and a chipper, I'd get a model that can run either chips or pellets when firewood no longer is my best choice because of my advancing age. For now, I'll stay with wood.

[jimsudz]

Hey Eric, how do Jim's pans look on your new arch? What did the CDL rep think of the pans? Hope you have a prosperous season. Jim

[tuckermtn]

Jim - the smoky lake pans look great on the arch. Lots of shiny stainless in the sugarhouse. Samuel noted that the pans were very high quality and he was thinking that they had one more flue in the back and then the standard CDL pans.

[noreast maple]

Just curious as to how much just the arh alone without the pans cost? and also how are you likeing it so far? --I realize you probably havent used it to much yet this year, hope you will keep us updated. thanks--Noreast maple

[tuckermtn]

Noreast - I ordered my arch through Chris at Maple Guys. Ordered in May of last year, and with the early season discount it was just shy of $14K. That is without the silo, but with stack, cover, jack, day-bin, auger, etc...everything you need to fire up, minus the pans.

Really liking it so far. Made for a good conversation piece yesterday for our open house. My friend who works for NE wood pellet stopped up yesterday and we did some quick, back-of-the recipt math - concentrating to 8-10%, we can make an average of 6 gallons of syrup per hour. The arch burns 100 lbs. of pellets an hour. so a gallon every 10 minutes of burn. That means it takes 16 lbs of pellets to make one gallon of syrup. my pellets cost $.125 per lb., so that puts my per gallon fuel cost at $2 per gallon of syrup.

We tuned it down yesterday to prolong the sap we had on hand, which we did by just slowing down our feed rate. It doesn't start up and cool down like an oil burner, but certainly better than our cordwood arch.

Would love to get a lot of sap one of these days so we can re-circ with the RO to get above 12%, so we can see how we could bring that per-gallon fuel cost down...hope springs eternal...

[PerryFamily]

Eric- when I called CDL they told me the pellet rig cost per gallon was ¢.80. But didn't tell what the concentration was. They must have been closer to 15%+/-.
Glad it is working good. Still a little rich for me! Gonna stick with wood for now.

[maple flats]

I think the CDL catalog shows the concentrate being at 16% for their fuel cost projection and pellets at $160/ton.

[tuckermtn]

Falts has it spot on - the CDL numbers are for higher concentrate and lower fuel costs. I knew that their numbers would not match mine, both in terms of concentrate % and fuel costs. I have never heard of pellets for less than about $200, and that is bagged pellets from western canada. So those are just my numbers so far, for what it is worth...

[PerryFamily]

Thanks for the info flats!

Eric glad you are happy with it. I am intrigued and jealous at the same time!!

[noreast maple]

Eric-- can your evap. run with chips or is it strictly pellets? the reason Im asking is I was wondering if the feed system would be the same. Im interested in going with chips,only useing my same arch and incorporating a auger style feed.--Noreast Maple

[tuckermtn]

Pellet arch update. We are more or less finished with our first season with the CDL arch. Made a little north of 775 gallons of syrup using 8 tons of pellets. 6.5 tons from silo and 1.5 tons of bagged pellets. works out to 20 lbs of pellets per gallon of syrup, or $2.50 per gallon of syrup for fuel. We were concentrating to an average of 9.5% sugar when you look at the season as a whole.

The only numbers that were off a bit from the CDL numbers was pellet consumption per hour. Based on CDL numbers, our 6.5 ton silo should have lasted 130 hrs of boiling, where as it lasted us 115 hrs. Not too far off in my book. toward the end of the season we adjusted some air and damper settings and were able to slow the pellet infeed auger rate from 7.0 RPM to 6.0 RPM, so I think next season we will likely be closer to the estimated fuel usage.

Evaporation rate was around 75-85 GPM based on matching RO output to evaporation rate. not a real accurate measuring device, but close enough for me. Granted we were using Smoky Lake's high output (more flues per foot) pan set, so hard to say what our arch with CDL pans would do.

Overall very happy with the choices we made. Perhaps Ragged View will chime in here with his impressions, as he spent many an hour drawing syrup off the rig this season.

For what its worth, in my opinion, Pellet rigs are a viable alternative to oil fired evaporators...

-Eric

[KevinS]

great to see it is working out well!

[maple flats]

I'm real glad it worked well for you. When I get older and find it hard to process firewood or handle it for that matter, I'm thinking a pellet fired might be my first choice. They seemed to run much quieter and I like the idea of using locally renewable fuel. We have a pellet plant about 30 miles from me. Pellets just look like a great idea.
At the fuel cost you give, it looks like you pay $250/ton, is that correct? That sounds a little high. How far from a pellet plant are you? Would it be reasonable to haul your own and get an auger to feed the bin? Maybe even a grain wagon with auger to unload, like larger farms use to haul and dispense corn seed and fertilizer into their corn planters.
You wouldn't even need an auger, you could use a belt type conveyor with cross bars to feed a big funnel on top of the bin.

[noreast maple]

Would this same feed system work for chips or is it stricly for pellets?

[ennismaple]

Nice work Eric! I'm sure it's satisfying to see the end result of all your efforts.

[tuckermtn]

Noreast - It is my understanding that this system will not burn chips. I was told once by samuel from CDL why, but I cannot remember. perhaps Samuel will chime in on here...

Flats - yes, my pellet price was 250 a ton delivered. Pellets came from NE wood pellet in Jaffrey NH via one of their distributors Sandri Oil in Greenfield Mass. They were cheaper than NE Wood Pellet directly. I could have prob. gotten them cheaper via some other system, but I just wanted to make a call and get the silo filled...

A large producer near me who currently runs oil on 11K+ taps is looking at pellets in the foreseable future, and he is going to do the whole manufacturing of the pellets himself. his is shopping around for a medium sized pellet mill right now....

[noreast maple]

thanks eric for the reply.I suspect that if i try this it would have to be homemade anyways.maybe i will start by checking on some kind of feed other than just an auger.

[ennismaple]

A large producer near me who currently runs oil on 11K+ taps is looking at pellets in the foreseable future, and he is going to do the whole manufacturing of the pellets himself. his is shopping around for a medium sized pellet mill right now....

This is becoming a trend that the equipment manufacturers are all paying attention to. Many have gone to the solid wood, high efficiency arches and the pellet and chip arches are becoming more economical. A large (20,000 tap) producer near use recently replaced their oil fired arch with a 5x16' Force 5. Depending on sugar content or the sap, whether we re-circulate sap before sending it to the feed tank and the quality of the wood we're burning (hardwood vs softwood) we're averaging close to 100 gallons of syrup produced per cord of wood. No other fuel source can touch that cost per gallon for the % concentrate that we feed the float box, especially since we have wood that needs to be cleaned up in the bush every year anyways. If/when we add more RO capacity to concentrate to 12-14% our cost per gallon will come down even more. The days of cheap oil are over and if we as maple producers (on a larger scale) want to stay profitable we need to become more efficient.

[sam1234]

Hi Eric, First of all, I am happy to see that you are satisfied with your Pellet rig this year.

I see many arguments on here showing the interest for alternatives to oil, which is very understandable in order to be as profitable as possible.
Most important thing when choosing an evaporator is to make sure that the flavor/quality will not be affected by the evaporation process used. Evaporation is one thing, but making good maple syrup is another one.... You can bring sap to 66 brix without heat, but it won't be syrup... I think that every evaporation process that makes high quality maple syrup is a good choice, THEN we can go for the cheapest one!!!!

According to chips, you cannot use the same auger as pellets... chips auger is bigger and it is a pretty common piece you can purchase... but chips has a big disadvantage compared to pellet... It is extremely hard to control the size of the chunks and quality of the chunks (moisture etc...) easily. In a perfect world where you could guarantee you have high quality chips, chips would be an option for me... Verona school has a chips arch and they like it, but they have to work hard to have high quality chips or they are in trouble!

This is the advantage of pellets... The pellet manufacturers are more and more NORMALIZING (this is extremely important!) the size and content of their products so manufacturers of burners/boilers can design their machines for a specific pellet size and moisture degree. On the other hand, there is still some good pellets and some bad pellets... Don't get me wrong! I would also be very careful in deciding to make my own pellets because you now need to make sure you make good quality stuff... It looks easy, but I am not sure it is that easy, but I am not an expert either... Imagine what it would be to have to make sure the fuel you put in your car is good everytime you fill it up... Bad fuel = lack of power = bad efficiency = damage to components etc... For the price you can pay for pellets in bulk right now, I wouldn't take the risk, but it's a personal choice... My opinion is that the payback is not there for all the trouble you can have. Also chips require a lot more room to store and require a HUGE burner/firebox to produce the same amount of power as pellets...


Noreast - It is my understanding that this system will not burn chips. I was told once by samuel from CDL why, but I cannot remember. perhaps Samuel will chime in on here...

Flats - yes, my pellet price was 250 a ton delivered. Pellets came from NE wood pellet in Jaffrey NH via one of their distributors Sandri Oil in Greenfield Mass. They were cheaper than NE Wood Pellet directly. I could have prob. gotten them cheaper via some other system, but I just wanted to make a call and get the silo filled...

A large producer near me who currently runs oil on 11K+ taps is looking at pellets in the foreseable future, and he is going to do the whole manufacturing of the pellets himself. his is shopping around for a medium sized pellet mill right now....

[noreast maple]

Thanks sam, thats is the information that I was looking for. I thought that the auger would be different. Iwill keep seaching for more info on them. Again thank you and thanks to tukerman too. I enjoyed this subject and hope you have many good years with your new pellet arh. who knows, maybe thats the way Ill end up going. ethier way ,chips or pellets as long as it is still wood fired without the back aches. good luck with yours.------------------NorEast Maple

[collinsmapleman2012]

Noreast, another thing with pellets is that they are a much more even and predictable heat, I went to VVS where they have a chip evaporator (the school that holds the ny maple conference) and it can be temperamental if you have a wet spot in the chips or big chips, they have a biomass willow planting that seems to work well but the first year we ran it, there were wild temperature swings, due to inconsistent chips and some issues with the evaporator(that have been worked out mostly), this year it ran better until a wet bed of chips was encountered, so there is much more work into moving chips, drying, etc, which would not be an issue with pellets.

[TheMapleMoose]

Are you using a hardwood pellet or hard/soft mix?

[tuckermtn]

Hardwood super premium pellet from New England Wood Pellet.

[noreast maple]

Noreast, another thing with pellets is that they are a much more even and predictable heat, I went to VVS where they have a chip evaporator (the school that holds the ny maple conference) and it can be temperamental if you have a wet spot in the chips or big chips, they have a biomass willow planting that seems to work well but the first year we ran it, there were wild temperature swings, due to inconsistent chips and some issues with the evaporator(that have been worked out mostly), this year it ran better until a wet bed of chips was encountered, so there is much more work into moving chips, drying, etc, which would not be an issue with pellets.---thanks for that info, thats another thing that im trying to figure out is the best way to store them. --I use to haul chips to an electric plant so im very filmiliar with the moisture and chip size. you have to have sharp knives on the chipper or you end up with long stringy pieces and alot of big pieces. the best chips are mill chips and the next best are what they call bowl chips.

[theguywiththename]

does a wood chip evaporator have a pot similar to the pellet evaporator? wouldnt mind rigging something up for my arch so it can be dual fuel essepially since we recently purchased a wood chipper

[tuckermtn]

I would think that for a chip evaporator you would have to use the more uniform bole chip or a mill chip. very little bark (less ash) Well worth the extra $ to get a more uniform chip.

[collinsmapleman2012]

As long as the chips aren't too big it should be ok. We ran huge chips from our chipper, some maple chips from a local logger, and the willow chips. The chips from the logger were different sized( he lost a knife when the tree was chipped) and it didn't phase anything. The auger has to be able to take it, and it'll go in. The firebox looks a lot like a wood one, but with a channel in the center for the chips and ash. They store their chips in a bunker now, like corn silage but with a roof.

[Mark]

I asked D&G if they would put a bigger auger in their pellet arch for chips and they said they would build whatever I wanted.

[spud]

How many pounds of pellets to make a gallon of syrup? Thanks

Spud

[tuckermtn]

spud - Made a little north of 775 gallons of syrup using 8 tons of pellets. 6.5 tons from silo and 1.5 tons of bagged pellets. works out to 20 lbs of pellets per gallon of syrup, or $2.50 per gallon of syrup for fuel. We were concentrating to an average of 9.5% sugar when you look at the season as a whole.

[sam1234]

Hi Spud,

You must know that Eric's arch is not equipped with the heat exchanger... According to me he did the right choice because his operation is not big enough to justify the payback of this option but he needs to live with higher stack temperature, so heat loss...
Large producers here in quebec are running less than 8 pounds of pellet per gallon of syrup with large operation so it varies a lot. (of course, concentrating at 18-20 brix).
Quality of pellet will affect drastically these numbers, quantity of start up and shut down, heat exchanger or not, fine tuning etc....

[noreast maple]

Sam , how do you keep the heat from escaping out the feed chute. thats my biggest concern. I dont see how sparks and heat dont or couldnt travel back up the feed chute.

[sam1234]

Sam , how do you keep the heat from escaping out the feed chute. thats my biggest concern. I dont see how sparks and heat dont or couldnt travel back up the feed chute.

The auger tube is pressurized...
Come meet me this week-end at CDL USA Open House, I'll show you...:)

[sam1234]

Noreast, another thing with pellets is that they are a much more even and predictable heat, I went to VVS where they have a chip evaporator (the school that holds the ny maple conference) and it can be temperamental if you have a wet spot in the chips or big chips, they have a biomass willow planting that seems to work well but the first year we ran it, there were wild temperature swings, due to inconsistent chips and some issues with the evaporator(that have been worked out mostly), this year it ran better until a wet bed of chips was encountered, so there is much more work into moving chips, drying, etc, which would not be an issue with pellets.

Collins, I agree with you 100%

[steam maker]

Sam r u gonna be at cdl rutlands open house ? Heard the pellet arch is gonna be there also and im interested in it !!!

[noreast maple]

Sam , Im not going to be able to make it to st. albans open house but if you could, would you send some info down to rutland open house with garth? Im going to meet with him there to discuss more on the chip evap. --If you could I would greatly appreciate it . thanks in advance-----Bob.

[noreast maple]

I would think that for a chip evaporator you would have to use the more uniform bole chip or a mill chip. very little bark (less ash) Well worth the extra $ to get a more uniform chip. ------Im thinking the same eric,and also you could have better contol on moisture too especialy in bowl chips. just leave them in log length for a year before chipping, Im thinking anyways ,not 100% sure on it.

[sam1234]

Sam r u gonna be at cdl rutlands open house ? Heard the pellet arch is gonna be there also and im interested in it !!!

Hi Steam maker, I will not be at Rutland unfortunately but will be happy to give you info anytime. Garth can tell you how to reach me at the office.

[sam1234]

Sam , Im not going to be able to make it to st. albans open house but if you could, would you send some info down to rutland open house with garth? Im going to meet with him there to discuss more on the chip evap. --If you could I would greatly appreciate it . thanks in advance-----Bob.

Hi Noreast Maple, I will ask our enginner to communicate as much info he can to Garth. He was the one working with Verona School on the project. You can always ask Garth how to get a hold of Maurice. Thanks,
Samuel

[noreast maple]

Thanks Sam.Ill be sure and ask him.

[noreast maple]

Well Eric, I see now why your so happy with your pellet evaporator, I see one at cdl open house in rutland today and I have to say I was really Impressed. --Amazing what little of a pile of pellets it took to make a raging inferno. very happy to get to see that but alittle disalusioned that they didnt bring any info or video like they said they would of their chip evap. -- oh well Ill just keep looking , maybe another manufacture will come up with one.