Converted Wood Burner

[brikel]

9173


I have posted this "evaporator" on here before. I built this from an old wood burner that I had taken out of my basement. it serves the purpose ok but, I believe the pan is to far forward. One person on here was afraid it would not be very efficient. He was right. It does boil and the concept I think will work with some modifications. I would like to add a 30 x 48 flat pan to it and would like some input. My thoughts are to cut a hole in the back of the burner, and add a heat chamber fabricated from 1/8 steel lined with 2" ceramic blanket. I will remove the stack and attach it to the back of the heat chamber. By doing this I can add the new flat pan on top of the burner and heat chamber that I attach to the back of the burner. I can get the fire cranking on this unit but most of my heat is behind the current pan, which will boil, but not efficiently. I believe that adding the pan will allow for better use of the unit and I can use the existing pan on front as a finish pan. Any thoughts on the depth of the heat chamber would be greatly appreciated. I have showed this concept to another syrup producer who believes it will work and has given me some good points to consider, but I would like more thoughts and suggestions. any would be greatly appreciated.

[bowhunter]

Your idea will increase the boil rate, but the problem is see is the pan is sitting on top of the stove. To get really high boil rates the pan needs to sit over the fire. The heat transfer through the top of the stove and up through the pan is not very good by evaporator standards. The stove wall is many times thicker than a syrup pan and although steel is a good conductor the thicker the steel the lower the heat transfer. Several people on the forum have used wood stoves, but they cut the top off the stove and modified it so the pan will sit on top of the cut out. You can use ceramic wool gasket material to seal between the pan and the stove to keep it relatively air tight.

[brikel]

Bowhunter

my plans are to cut out the top of the stove...I did that for the pan that is on there now. plus there will only be approx. 10 inches of the bigger pan directly over the stove the rest will be over the extended heating chamber. thanks for your input.

[happy thoughts]

[My thoughts are to cut a hole in the back of the burner, and add a heat chamber fabricated from 1/8 steel lined with 2" ceramic blanket. I will remove the stack and attach it to the back of the heat chamber. .

JMHO but if you have the skills and tools to do that you might be better off building a barrel or oil tank arch. I understand the need to try to use what you have but I don't see your efforts being worth it on that setup. Your pans will always be too far from the heat.

You might be able to re-purpose the doors, firebrick and door gasket into a new set up.

Best of luck with whatever you decide to do. Good thing about this season is we've all had plenty of time to get things worked out :)

[bowhunter]

Sorry...I didn't see that you had cut the top off the wood stove. That was the right thing to do.

[waterfowlah]

on My barrel evaporator, My front pan wouldn't boil like I wanted, So I put a piece of sheet steel that went from the back of the barrel forward to the middle of the front pan. I then cut three 2" holes under the back pan to keep its boil. Works great!! looking at your rig I believe you could do the same and force the heat more forward. Not ideal but you could use what you have now.