how much sap to fill 30"x8' pans do i need on hand???????????

[cpmaple]

Should have asked this awhile ago but just sitting here wondering how much sap it will take to fill the pans. Back pan is 30"x5' raise flue and front is 30"x3' divided pan and thoughts? My thoughts are 75-85gallons to fill pans also roughly how much to sweeten them? Just trying to get an idea so I know thanks this set up is new to me this year. Thanks in advance cpmaple (chad)

[michiganphil]

Just do the math to figure the volume of the pans.

All in inches:
(Pan length x width x depth of sap) + (# of flues x length of flue x width of flue x depth of flue) = volume of pans
volume in cu. inches/231 = gallons

to sweeten, Big Eddy did some work:
http://mapletrader.com/community/showthread.php?15663-Calculation-for-Sap-before-draw-off&p=174567#post174567

[jmayerl]

What he said.

[DaveB]

I took the calculations in this and the other thread and put together a simple online calculator:

http://www.realmaplesyrup.com/sap.php

If you put in your pan information, it will calculate the numbers of gallons needed to fill the pan as well as sweeten the pan.

HTH

[eustis22]

can you make it for different sized pans with or without flues?

[DaveB]

can you make it for different sized pans with or without flues?

Yeah, just change the numbers that I included - I just put those there as samples. It should calculate based on the formulas given here.

[cpmaple]

thanks so much for the info I cant believe that it was that easy. Which it wouldn't of been without all your help that's why I love this site all the fellow sugarer makers out there willing to help another out. thanks again cpmaple (chad)

[eustis22]

well, it';s telling me I need 150 gallons to sweeten a 2X3 pan? that sounds a bit high.

[redneck mapler]

I hope this doesn't sound totally stupid. what do you mean by sweeten your pan. I bought a raised flue pan 30" by 5 ft. New this year. This summer I am having a 30" by 3 ft. finish pan and new arch. Just wondered what you mean by sweeten the pan. thanks

[DaveB]

well, it';s telling me I need 150 gallons to sweeten a 2X3 pan? that sounds a bit high.

If you're talking about my calculator, I just used the formula that Big Eddy had created but I think it's fairly accurate. For my 2x6 pan it says 486 gallons. While I can't be certain, I know I had boiled for a couple of days one year without making any syrup and joking with my wife that the sap had a ratio of 400:1. I started taking off syrup about every half an hour after that. This would explain that!


I hope this doesn't sound totally stupid. what do you mean by sweeten your pan. I bought a raised flue pan 30" by 5 ft. New this year. This summer I am having a 30" by 3 ft. finish pan and new arch. Just wondered what you mean by sweeten the pan. thanks

To sweeten the pan means to develop a gradient of essentially fresh sap where the float box enters the evaporator to near syrup by the draw off valve. You should then be able to draw off syrup fairly regularly, with the amount depending on your evaporators performance.

[hounder]

Very neat! Thanks for sharing that.

[opiejudd]

That calculator is awesome. I filled our arch with buckets of water. And it took 50 gallons. (Back in January to test boil) and the calculator calls for 50 gallons. The sweetening part is little scary at 930 gallons. Lol They should add the boil rate to the calculation too.

[DaveB]

That calculator is awesome. I filled our arch with buckets of water. And it took 50 gallons. (Back in January to test boil) and the calculator calls for 50 gallons. The sweetening part is little scary at 930 gallons. Lol They should add the boil rate to the calculation too.

I based the sweetening part on the equation found here:

http://mapletrader.com/community/showthread.php?15663-Calculation-for-Sap-before-draw-off&p=174567#post174567

It sounds high but I think it's right. I might tweak the formula to use the sugar content to calculate the ratio. Right now I have 40 in there which works out to about 2.15%. You can change that depending on what you have. If you think about it though, the larger the evaporator, the more sap would be required and the faster you would boil that amount. I don't know how it works exactly but I liked the formula and know how to code that so I thought I'd share. If anyone has any tweaks or other calculations, I can add those too.

[Mark-NH]

Hard pressed to think you need more than 3x the amount needed to flood the pans to sweeten them.

[Super Sapper]

I must be doing something wrong. I have a 2X6 with a 4 foot 1 1/2 inch deep V flu pan and a 4 channel 2X2 syrup pan. I draw off at the back of the syrup pan next to the flu pan. I fired it up today and started drawing off at around 60 to 70 gallons. It was the same last year. I boiled 116 gallons and drew off what looked like a little over a gallon. I was feeding 3 1/2% sap and I checked a couple of times and had 7% in the start of the first channel of the syrup pan. I run about 1 to 1 1/2 inches deep.

[CampHamp]

I think that equation works for drop-flue rigs. With your raised flue you need to calculate each pan separately. The front one is easy. For the back, use the equation logic but measure depth of sap to pan bottom and subtract this flue volume instead of adding it.

[Super Sapper]

Mine is a drop flu. A flat pan computes out to more gallons than what mine takes.