My New Oil Tank Arch

[Evets]

Last season, I built a block arch with steam table pans, and halfway thru, I had a guy build me a 2X4-ish divided pan, which worked much better. Over the summer I scavenged a 275g oil tank and built an arch to go with the new pan.
To reduce cost, I'm using Roxul Thermo-fiber for insulation, a thin layer under full fire brick under the grate, and thicker under the fire brick splits on the sides.
The grate is 1" solid hexagonal bar tied together with angle iron, which also supports vertical angle iron which hold the splits.
I'm hoping to get a test boil in today if I can.

[sweetmoomoo]

looks good, good luck with it.

[TerryEspo]

Nice rig, looks very nice.

From what I see though the grate spacing looks pretty wide, no problem getting rid of ashes, lol.

How far apart are the grate bars, like how many inches in between each one?

Good luck.

Terry

[Evets]

Nice rig, looks very nice.

From what I see though the grate spacing looks pretty wide, no problem getting rid of ashes, lol.

How far apart are the grate bars, like how many inches in between each one?

Good luck.

Terry

About 2 inches. That's all the steel I had at the time. Should they be closer? If so, why?
I did get a test boil in today. I had boiling within 15 minutes of firing and once it got rolling, I had boil pretty much the length of the pan. If I had to guess I'd figure 7-8 gph, maybe more, without really pushing it. I'm pretty happy with that. Heck, I only have 14 taps after all.

[TerryEspo]

Hi Evets:

I am no expert, but I feel 2" gaps lets lots of good useable hot coals fall before you have benefitted from the BTU's they offer.

I sometimes toss small sticks in my arch that could fall through that spacing. Coals that are 2" x 12" can fall though even, I am thinking.

Again, I don't know for sure and hope all the great minds here will post an educated reply, unlike my opinionated reply, lol.

It sounds like your times to get a boil are great, good unit you have there.

You are going to make sap boil whatever happens !!

Good luck.

Terry

[Ausable]

Howdy Evets - It looks good to me. my homemade arch is also from a 250 gal. fuel oil tank. Some things I like better on Yours than mine -- and some things I like better on mine than Yours........I have steel factory floor grates that I used in my arch - and all went well till I fired with ash slab wood and it got so hot it sagged - I need something like You have or possibly angle iron. My fuel and ash doors are much like Yours and work fine. My Son and Grandson also built a 2' x 5' continuous flow flat pan with 2 sap sections and 3 syrup sections - so I needed the whole cut off top area for evaporator pans - They welded a box on the upper back of the arch for my stack. Anyway - No two homemade rigs are the same and they all make maple syrup. Have fun and make lots of maple.