Dr.Tim on air injection

[twitch]

Dr. Tim I was searching around the internet looking for info on air injection and came across your paper wrote on it. I have been thinking about building an air injection system for next season. I am concerned about the part about off flavor. I have a couple questions. Does it at all increase your evaporation rate? And would you do it or not ?

[Russell Lampron]

I built one for mine and have been using it since the middle of last season. I can't tell you for certain that it does increase your evaporation rate. I have made much lighter syrup of all grades and haven't made anything this season that would be considered commercial. I also haven't experienced any off flavors.

A discussion about the use of air injection and how I built it can be found here http://mapletrader.com/community/showthread.php?20529-Bubblemaster-1.0

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

I believe most studies show that there is no increase in boiling rate, in fact with oil it might be slightly less as the air is cooling the sap. With wood (my experience) I think there may be a slight but insignificant increase. Big advantage is syrup color.

[Burnt sap]

Never heard of this? Is this compressed air into the start of a mainline? Must be cheaper than a pricy vacuum system. Tell me more! no need found your link to the study. Sounds pretty neat.

[Mark]

We needed some darker syrup to bottle so we pulled the bubblers out of the front two syrup pans yesterday. Today we will put them back in and see if we can detect a change in flavor. They definitely make lighter syrup. From our experience over the last couple years the syrup still tastes good but it could be slightly stronger than you would think it should be for the color. If you would be making medium today and you put the bubblers in you get light that tastes like medium.

We will see how it goes later today with them back in. The nice part is with my rig we need no defoamer with the air injection.

As for evaporation rate I don't know. We have three front pans and pulled them out of the front two. On start up yesterday the pan that still had them was steaming real good and the front two not at all. Once up to a full boil there was not a visual difference.

[Clinkis]

Never heard of this? Is this compressed air into the start of a mainline? Must be cheaper than a pricy vacuum system. Tell me more!

Air is injected into pan while boiling not into sap lines.

[Burnt sap]

Thanks Clinkis Guess I still have to save my pennies for a vacuum system.:cry: