evaporating on a boxwood stove?

[frontiersman1985]

I plan to evaporate useing hotel pans ontop of my outside cast iron wood stove. Does this sound like an ok amateur method? This upcoming season is my first, and i have 40 taps. Do you think the stove idea will work considering my small scale operation?

[RileySugarbush]

The hotel pans are a great setup for starting out or smaller tap counts There are lots of hints here to help get you going.

The most important thing is to get the bottom ( and some expose the sides as well) of the pan exposed directly to the fire, and not on a stove top as may be the case for your cast iron stove.

[happy thoughts]

agree with John. You'll get a better boil putting those pans in the fire. Look at some threads on concrete block arches. With 40 taps I don't think a stove top set up is going to fill your needs.

[Kyle M]

I Tried this method, it was painfully slow, best used as a pre heater

[frontiersman1985]

The pans will be directly on the flame, my stove has removable disks for cooking!

[Yellzee]

40 sounds like alot for this set up. Unless you have alot of time and wood!

[happy thoughts]

I agree with yelzee. Those disks don't allow for pots with a big enough surface area for efficient evaporation and if set down deep, there'll be little room left for a fire. It might work if you have less than a handful of taps, lots of wood and time. With 40 taps plan on a minimum of 400 gallons of sap. You might get an evaporation rate of 1 gallon per hour if you're lucky with that set up. That means close to 400 hours of boil time. How much sleep do you need? :)