Batch pan questions

[Pete S]

I have been formulating ideas from lurking about here to build a 250 gal oil drum evaporator............and thanks to those who have posted.

Here's my question/delema:
Currently we utilize a large commercial baking pan, as a batch type pan. When we work through about 40 gallons of sap, we can hold the total amount of syrup comfortably, without the level being to dangerously low, and dump'er out when it's time.
WHEN, (not if) I build my next evaporator, the pan will likely be a batch type set-up possibly with a drain spout..............BUT with a larger pan the meeger gallon'er so of syrup would be spread QUITE thin thus creating what I would think to be a potential for disaster.

How is this addressed?

How do "rat maze" type pans work............better?

I'd like to bust out of the 1 gallon of syrup in 8 hours bracket if possible with a home made rig, and low investment. (feel free to laugh)

We intend to utilize our current set-up this coming season.

Thanks for your replies!
Pete

[Sugarmaker]

Pete,
No laughing here.
We made syrup on a old Warren for years in all flat pans (Except for the preheater pan). Closed off one pan and made 2 -3 gallons of syrup at a time, these pans had a exterior center drain plug, and lifted from one side to drain the hot syrup. We were firing with oil so we just turned off the fire when ready to take off a batch. Then we Let the pan back down and quickly flooded the pan with the next batch.
Many nice pictures of 275 gal oil tanks cut in half for the arch.
Good luck.
Chris

[Scott30]

Last year, we built an evaporator out of an old 250 gal oil tank cut in half. We used a stainless steel wash vat, from an old milk house. The vat allowed us to boil about 15 gallons of sap at once. Then we would have a 5 gallon stainless steel milk pail with a 1/4 inch plastic hose which would siphon into the vat. This helped maintain the boil much better than just pouring it in.

We had a 12 inch silo pipe about 8 feet long for a stack. And then proceeded to burn mostly shumach to create a faster boil.

Once the sap was boiled down to a level which threatened to burn the vat, we would move to a smaller pan, to finish the boil. In about 12 hours we would have about 2 gallons of syrup.

The rig was inefficient at best, but it did produce good maple syrup. :)

Good Luck with yours,
Scott

[royalmaple]

Pete-

You can set up a series of banquet type pans, and transfer from one to the next and keep concentrating into one pan.

Don't worry about the laughs, if anyone out there tells you they never had something less than perfect before they are lying.

If you do go with a oil tank, you could weld on some angle iron around the top edge to give you a working surface to set your pans on. If you want or can get one flat pan made roughly 2x5 and use one pan on the top. Then you can weld in some dividers and let the sap snake through the pan and draw off on one end.

But even so, if you set up your oil tank properly you can always add to it. This year use several banquet pans, then maybe a flat pan next year and so on.

The partitions will help what you are boiling stay separate. So when you add sap at one end it does not instantly mix with everything in the pan, but will push the syrup towards the front.

If you have a batch type set up, then you boil down , then instead of taking syrup off you add more sap, but really you added more sap but diluted the syrup you almost had, then get that down as low as you can in the pan, but don't really have enough syrup yet, so add more sap. Thus diluting the almost syrup again, until you have enough to take the pan off and finish.

So that would be the main difference.

[HanginAround]

My friend and I built an oil tank evap last yr, all we could do after it got too shallow was pour it off and finish it in a pot on the electric stove. He's looking for a smaller pan to finish in, because the 2' x 5' is just too big when you get close to the end. A 2' x 2' pan would be great to finish in, as we made covers for the evap, so you can remove the big pan and slide the covers to fit over the whole evap, or up against a smaller pan.