Am I on the right track?

[Chicopee Sap Shack]

So this year i caught the fever and am jump in head first! Im in the process of building my sugar house have all the wood split and stacked and this weekend im going to pick up a used evaporator. Im getting a 2X4 leader with raised flues. My plan is to boil to near syrup then use a 16X16 finisher to bring near syrup up to temp and density when I have a good amount. I will then use a second 16X16 caner filter pan to filter and keep at temp then can out of. Does this sound like a good idea or am i over thinking it?

Scott

[jmayerl]

First off, hello on your first post, secondly yes this will work. You can probably forget about the finisher thou since you can finish no problem on the evaporator. This will free up space and wood in the evaporator is cheaper than gas for a finisher. Yes it's easy to over think making syrup, remember that all your doing is boiling off water.

[MISugarDaddy]

That is the basic setup that we use to process our syrup and it works great for us. Using the gas finisher will help to increase the output of your evaporator because you are gaining the added space for cooking sap to syrup. We have also found that we are able to produce Grade A light amber syrup continuously because we are not overcooking the syrup in the evaporator. The amount of propane that we use is minimal.
Congratulations on the new endeavor and hope that the sugarhouse is coming along well. We are also in the process of building a new sugarhouse and are looking forward to next season.

[Chicopee Sap Shack]

Ok, thanks that's what i was thinking. less chance of scorching the pan where it's so small.

[PerryW]

I would stick to just the 2x4 for smaller sap runs, but use the finisher during the mega-sap runs to increase evaporation rate as MISugarDaddy said. But if you haven't bought the equipment yet, I would use the money for the finisher to upgrade the 2x4 evaporator to a larger size (2x6 or bigger)