High Efficiency arch stack temp

[bees1st]

With those of you who run a high efficiency arch . At what temp do you like to run it ? and at what temp do you usually reload ?
Thanks in advance

[sugarman3]

900-950,depending on various wood and wood size,fire every3-5 min to keep stack temp up.

[Brent]

for us 950 to 1100.
you will get the most consistent flow through the syrup pan if you add wood more frequently in smaller batches.
After you put in a load of wood, step outside to see how long you get black smoke before it changes back to clear again. Black smoke is a fire overloaded with cold wood and not burning well and putting more creosote on the pans.

When we started putting in smaller loads to keep the temps up more consistently we actually started getting long continuous draws, up to 20 minutes or so, on a small rig 30" x 8'. The champions of long continuous flows are
oil fired rigs. Try to imitate the smooth continuous high temps they get. It will also avoid the dreaded, "making syrup in the middle of the pan" syndrome and foaming up and scorching the middle channel.

[bees1st]

Brent , Thanks for the good explanation . I was getting black smoke and new it was unburnt fuel I instinctively started putting in smaller loads. My stack temp seems to hang consistently around 850 to 900 , but that may be explained by the proportionality longer rig I have ( 2.5 x 10 ). What size wood do you use ? How often would you say you reload ?

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

My evaporator does best with 1200 to 1400 stack temps as I have posted on here before. As far as long continous draws, I can often draw for 1 to 1.5 hours on my 2x8 with a steamaway boiling 1.7% sap. If that is the sign of doing it correctly, then I guess I need to maintain those stack temps and I fire every 10 minutes. I have high pressure AUF and AOF on all 4 sides of the fire.

[ennismaple]

Our Force 5 hums along perfectly at 800 F stack temp. Above that I'm throwing smoke and sparks out the stack. Below that I don't get a hard enough boil. I reload when the temp drops to about 725 F.

I'll qualify this answer by saying our stack thermometer doesn't go below 200F so I had to guestimate where zero was when I calibrated it.

[bees1st]

Ennismaple , What are your reloading times ? What do you find works best for a size in your wood ?

[ennismaple]

Ennismaple , What are your reloading times ? What do you find works best for a size in your wood ?

With softwood we're reloading at 30 minute intervals, hardwood it's 45 minutes - give or take. We find the bigger the sticks the better. We cut to 44" length and if it's smaller than 8" diameter we don't split it.

[LittleEnnis]

Adding to my brother's answer: I can usually tell what type of wood we burned by how sore I am the day after. Some of the big pieces of 44" maple can make you a little tired after firing for over 10 hours. The annoying basswood pallets that have to get fired more often generally leave me feeling like I haven't been beaten with a hammer.