Hobby pan designs?

[ridgerunner394]

Here is a question to the collective ~

I am a hobby - personal use boiler. I am looking at having a pan made to fit my 3 burner propane cook stove (camp chef Denali). My intent will be to reduce then finish on another stove.

I have seen many styles of pans in use, my question is in regards to the design of the baffling used. Some have baffles that run "length wise" others "across the width". My pan will be 36 x 18 x 4. My thought is to include 3 or 4 baffles across the width of the pan.

Pros and cons on this idea, also spacing - do I go 3 baffles at 8inches or 4 at 6 inches?

I welcome any thoughts on this

thanks
john

[chad]

You have good intenions with your pan plan, but there are a few questions one- how many taps do you have the reason I ask is it takes a bit of sap to make a continuos flow pan work the "baffles" in the pans you see are called continuos flow pan you actually need to have the sap running in the one side and gravity makes it work because syrup is heavier than sap if you are just going to batch boil than you don't need any bafflesjust a flat pan would work great

[ridgerunner394]

thanks for you reply, I have 20 taps in, I have one 45 gal food grade storage barrel (with spout) and another 8 four gallon pails which I use to transport the sap. Last year I was using a turkey deep fryer and batch boiling. This was long and inefficient, my thought was to store sap this year until I had enough to do a continuous boil and not have to boil every day. I did not have the 45 gallon barrel last year and had a hard time keeping up to the sap (clearly not an issue this spring so far...)

do you know why some pans have the baffles across the width and others lengthwise?

I appreciate your advise here thanks.

[bushmoose]

I think you are confusing the term "continuous flow" with "continuous boil"? What you described in your last post "my thought was to store sap this year until I had enough to do a continuous boil" is called batch boiling. All you need is a flat pan. No baffles, no dividers, just a plain flat pan.

I should add that a 4" deep pan is not really enough in my opinion? A good rolling boil will be running over the sides.

[ridgerunner394]

you are correct in the respect that I am interchanging the terms "flow and boil" sorry if that confused you? Last year I was using a turkey deep fryer and batch boiling My question however remains as per the different designs of the baffles used and would appreciate any information you may have on that? Also, good point on the depth of the pan although I am not sure that a small hobby set up like mine would have that problem (using propane vs hardwood)?

[bushmoose]

I can't help in regards to a continuous flow pan as I use just a flat pan and batch boil. I boil till the sap is almost syrup then pull the pan off the fire and drain into a pot to finish on my turkey fryer.
As for you using propane to boil. You better believe that it will roll right over the sides of a shallow pan. You want the best boil possible and if you have to turn the heat down so it doesn't roll over the sides, then you're wasting time. I would recommend at least 6", or better, 8"? If you making a pan, plan for the future as one day you may wean yourself off propane and build an arch? What are you using to preheat? Each time you add cold sap to that pan, your boil will disappear.

[Pete S]

I would agree with bushmoose as I don't think the 4" deep pan is quite enough.

[ridgerunner394]

Yes I see your point on the depth and will re think that for sure. I am having a friend make the pan, so I can easily change the depth - and will thanks. I always preheat sap either in small batches on stove or other turkey fryer before adding to the boil.

As I have only used a turkey fryer to this point I will do this until pot is full and allow it to boil down and remove to another pan and finish on stove. (I just finished a batch today from Tue/Wed short run and ended up with 1.5L)

An arch would be great but I do not have the set up at this time to consider one, I am thinking of this down the line but not this year.

Bushmoose, how many gallons can you batch boil in your pan?

[bushmoose]

My pan is 25"x36"x12", made of mild steel. I usually fill it about 5 or 6 inches and keep it there as things boil. I use a converted oil tank as an evaporator, nothing fancy as I am just doing it for fun. (I've always said, when the fun stops, so do I)
As for the amounts. It varies each year and in fact, each boil? I've got a couple 45 gal (imp.)barrels I use for storage and plenty of 16 litre pails for backup. I pay close attention to the weather forecast and if it looks good, I'll start boiling until it's done or the weather shuts me down. I've spent many a night sitting by the fire until 2 or 3 am.92249225

[RollinsOrchards]

The traditional big evaporators use 2/3rds of the space for the "rear" sap pan divided into two compartments, and have the "front" syrup pan divided into say 4 compartments. Now to be able to draw off finished or nearly finished syrup at one end you are going to need a lot of sap. Lets say you had the pans perfectly level and ran them at one inch deep. That is going to take almost 3 gallons to fill the pans to that depth. So a quarter sized compartment of a third of the pan will hold a quart of syrup. That represents ten gallons of sap having gone into the process. I have never studied the numbers but I will bet that you need to process 60 gallons of sap on a rig that size to get a one quart draw off, and perhaps closer to 80 gallons. If you aren't going to have 100 gallons per boil I would stick with a flat pan batch process this year.

I agree that 4 inches deep is not nearly enough. I had a 5 inch pan and the sap would literally climb the corners and jump out making the nice burnt syrup streak down the side of my barrel stove. I would probably use 8 inch sides if I was going to build a pan that size.

I question if you can get enough heat out of a 3 burner camp stove to really make the sap dance. I tried to heat a pot on something like that with a 20 pound propane grill tank and could hardly get a simmer, say nothing of a boil. I would check if the stove will boil 3 large pots of water before proceeding.

All that being said, i think it would be cool to make your own divided pan that way, and dreamed of doing something like that myself before I got carried away and got a lot bigger.

You want the sap to travel a long narrow path to get the most out of your "gradient" and push the more done syrup along to the outlet. Given the footprint of 18" by 36" i would be tempted to try 3 dividers lengthwise making a pair of 6 inch by 36 inch sap channels at the back, and then put 4 dividers in the syrup channel at the front.

You might try having that made as a flat pan for a year and see if you like batch boiling on it. The dividers can always be added later.

[ridgerunner394]

Great information, thanks I really appreciate it. I am re thinking my plans now that I have had this input from everyone, I will continue to batch boil this year and go with the high sides, no partitions. Can add later right :{)

I have not used the 3 burner set up yet but feel it will do what I want. The turkey fryer single burner - deep pot is way to slow and inefficient. I think with 3 burners and greater surface area, less depth I can get her done!

on a side note I find the old evaporators and variety of designs very interesting. I recently saw one on line from Quebec that had a siphon between the back sap pan and front syrup pan? I had not seen that before!

[ridgerunner394]

Update on the pan for anyone interested, I went with the mild steel 36 x 15.5 x 8. Sits on my Camp Chef 3 burner propane cook stove perfectly. Ran 6 gal through it today - great to see the steam rolling off!94899490

I put one partition across the width 6" from the end to separate my trickle of fresh sap and not interfere with the boil - this worked very well. Now all I need is some fresh sap... mild here today +5C with some rain but no sap yet.