First boil of my life completed on steam table pans, Propane. Advice?

[Deereman76]

Last week I completed the first boil of my life. I was hoping you folks could look at a pic of my setup and offer any advice that could speed up my boil?

I had about 8 gallons of sap, and ended up with about 20 Fluid ounces of syrup. Took 4 hours from frozen sap to bottled syrup. I can see how this could be addictive...:o

Here is my setup:

8813

I figured it boiled roughly 3-3.5 gallons/hour. Seems like a lot of heat wasted around the ends of the pan, so I am considering hanging some aluminum foil around the edges to help hold heat around the pans. Not sure how much that would help. ??

Anyway, and advice to speed the boil, or use less propane, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Pat.

[Sugarmaker]

Yep that's how it starts:) one small improvement after another!
Regards,
Chris

[wnybassman]

The best part is you have plenty of time to think about improvements :)

[maplerookie]

tin foil will work till you get some wind , then you are gonna fight it...scrounge around for some sheet metal..ie dumpster dive at your local heating contractor. that will work far better. then sourround your whole rig except the front . 3.5 gallons is good. I use 3 steam table pans on my block arch and on my test boil I got about 9 -10 gallons per hour or so. truth will be in the pudding this weekend. hoping for at least 20 gallons off of my 19 buckets over the next 2 days and nights. pulled about 5 gallons today. would love to get 40 but that is really dreaming.

[325abn]

I suggest getting rid of the legs and using block to wall up around your burners and modify it so your burners are right up against your pan.

[325abn]

How many BTUs are you making?

[Deereman76]

The stove is rated at 90k btu's, but I was nowhere near high flame.

[SDdave]

I suggest getting rid of the legs and using block to wall up around your burners and modify it so your burners are right up against your pan.

Yes, build a block "arch" that will keep in an immense amount of heat. Putting your burners right against your pans will lead to major soot build up. Try keeping the pans just so the inner blue flame tip touches the pan.


The stove is rated at 90k btu's, but I was nowhere near high flame.

That is good that you don't crank it up all the way. Once you get the pans boiling reduce the heat, just to keep them boiling. Anything more will basically be lost propane usage. You might be able to squeeze another gallon per hour out of it, but you're going to be limited in GPH by pan surface area and the inefficiency of the burners (any improvements will lower that inefficiency).

Jealous though that your making syrup, as my area has slipped back into below freezing.

SDdave

[SmellsLikeSyrupNH]

Also I may add, that if you are storing your sap and you get a layer of ice on it, throw the ice away. It has such a low sugar content you are wasting your time. You will actually be increasing your sugar content in the left over sap by discarding the ice as the melt is just water and dilutes your sap...its only a minor issue, but why evaporate what you dont need to.

Good luck...last year I started with 5 buckets and a turkey fryer, by the end of the season, I was running 3 or 4 fryers at a time and did almost 400 gallons of sap, this year I got an evaporator....

[optionguru]

I run 3 and a half pans on a homemade oil tank evaporator and get about 12 gph, I call it the poor mans flue pan. Like the others have said you need to enclose the sides. You would be amazed how much energy it takes to overcome the cooler air hitting the sides of the pan. I agree with maplerookie, my first set up was a turkey set up then I put foil around it. I expanded my vocabulary every time the wind blew. Get something more substantial to surround everything but you won't get up into the higher gph numbers until you're able to get some insulation around the pans to hold all the heat in.

[SmellsLikeSyrupNH]

There is actually this Aluminum tape that you can buy for ductwork...its sort of like duct tape, but real metal instead of cloth tape material....that may help with the aluminum foil issue.

here is a link to an example:
http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-18881/3M-Single-Coated-Tapes/3M-3311-Aluminum-Foil-Tape-3-x-50-yards?pricode=WU325&gadtype=pla&id=34609809682&gclid=COa4uPG83bwCFS_xOgodckIAtQ&gclsrc=aw.ds

[Deereman76]

I can't modify the cooktop, as it is primarily a camp stove, and has to be kept as such. Hopefully we are getting good sap right now, so I can try out some things this weekend.

If All goes well this year, and we can ID some more Sugars maples this summer, We will probably be looking at a Wood Fired Cinder block arch next year...

I have 20 taps out, with bucket's, for the record....

Also, Someone mentioned throwing the ice out - I agree, typically, but when your bucket is 95% frozen, you can't just throw it all out...

[Cabin]

I can't modify the cooktop, as it is primarily a camp stove, and has to be kept as such. Hopefully we are getting good sap right now, so I can try out some things this weekend.

If All goes well this year, and we can ID some more Sugars maples this summer, We will probably be looking at a Wood Fired Cinder block arch next year...

I have 20 taps out, with bucket's, for the record....

Also, Someone mentioned throwing the ice out - I agree, typically, but when your bucket is 95% frozen, you can't just throw it all out...

Have you tasted that 5%?? I have been known to drain out the unfrozen sap and dumped the ice into another container to thaw and refreeze a bit.

[Deereman76]

Yeah, what little liquid was in the bucket, Measured at 3% sugar with the hydrometer, and the sap before it was frozen measured at 2.25%, so it did concentrate it some, there was still sugar in that ice....

[SDdave]

Deereman76,

I understand totally that you wouldn't want to "modify" (cut down) your camp stove. Another option for you is to get some cinder blocks (they're cheap and you might use them for your block arch next year) and stack them up around your stove table. Leave the front open, so you could put some pots with sap under the burners. Then all you would need is to find some sort of "door" so you can pull out some slightly preheated sap as needed. There is an immense amount of heat that will get trapped in there, so it comes with a double edge sword. One edge you'll get warm sap, while the other you can actually bring the frost out of the ground. If you care about your lawn do not do it there. (Personal experience... nice 4 foot square dead spot that had to be reseeded).

SDdave

[325abn]

When I was using propane I had 3 turkey frier burners blocedk in on a 16 x 20 restaurant pan. But then again propane was not $5/gal.

[Birddog]

I used a similar setup but with two burners and two steam tray pans. I had a metal wind screen on three sides that seemed to help some but still lost a lot of heat around the pans


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