evaporator pan not foaming

[Edson jones]

I hope some one can explain this to me. We are in our 3rd year sugaring , year 1- 2 turkey fryers and a 18x24 ss pan , year 2 - new sugarhouse home made 2x9 all flat bottom ss , year 3- 2x9 which is a 2x3 ss finishing pan a 2x3 home made copper with 12- 6in drop flues 35 in long and a copper pre heater pan with 8-drop flues 6in by 24in long. The question I have is my 2nd pan with 12 drop flues , I made with directional flow 3 partition . The evaporator works great its oil fired burning 2.75 gal hour it does about 42 - 44 gallon an hr evap rate but I see very little foam up? The sap test 2.2 sugar can anyone explain this or has seen it happen before.Also does anyone see in the future ed a market for traditional maple syrup not r.o ed syrup ,2014 we made 42 gallons gathered in buckets and we had people showing up to by syrup we never met they just heard we were making traditional syrup.My family can really taste the difference ,I would like hear others opinion. IM NOT PUTTING DOWN ANYBODY WHO R.OS but as a small sugaring family that sells to locals I believe in quality not quanity. thanks for reading

[devils11217]

By no means am I putting your operation down. But if people have a bad taste for ROed syrup.... Who wants oil fired ? Traditional is wood. I am as new as new gets but I don't think people mind RO sap if tere buying off an oil fired arch

[Edson jones]

That's a good point I guess traditional wasn't the right word , I would have gone wood but oil is handy not having a lot of taps and my daughters helping and not having wood fire experience. I should have just said syrup made with unaltered sap , increasing sugar from 2.0 to 20.0 has to affect the flavor .It doesn't have the time caramelize like slow process. I totally under stand why people r.o I know our local retailer batches 15-20 barrels at a time t make the syrup how he needs it.Im just curious if other small producers has had people looking for that type of syrup.

[mellondome]

should have just said syrup made with unaltered sap , increasing sugar from 2.0 to 20.0 has to affect the flavor .

RO only removes water... same thing you do when boiling. It doesnt alter the sap.
There is no taste difference with same grade syrup ro or not.

[mapleguy]

Edison jones, I have people tell me the same thing that RO syrup has a different flavour. I have a 3x10 wood fired evaporator and boil in the traditional way, no hood, preheater ,etc. have had people ask if my syrup is from RO'd sap and if so wouldn't purchase from me.

[StayinLowTech]

I do not want my back pan to foam. The most efficient boil in the back pan is an explosive boil with big bursting bubbles, that is why defoamer is added - to prevent foam.

[Sugarmaker]

Yes if the boil is great in the back pan don't worry about no foam.
Traditional syrup? Well I guess you could go back to slashing trees and gathering in hollowed logs and heating the syrup with rocks?
We all have ideas and opinions about what we eat. I think the resurgence in syrup is a direct result of going green and going back to nature. Then when folks get to that point they start to look at the details of how the product is processed. And that is where they see equipment they don't understand, like R.O.'s.
Folks like horse drawn equipment too. doesn't mean we are all going back to that era.
I would guess that 80% of the syrup made now runs through a R.O. If the flavor was not good from that process the industry would force a change.
I would guess that folks can taste a difference in my syrup from my neighbors. I think most of the flavor is from the trees, not the equipment.
Just my 2 cents.
By the way we are still boiling raw sap with wood. If I was to get bigger I would seriously consider a R.O. to improve the efficiency of maple syrup production.
Regards,
Chris

[motowbrowne]

Two very different topics here. No foam is good. That's why we add defoamer. If you don't need to because you don't have foam, that's great.

RO does alter sap. It takes the water out. It cracks me up that someone could say that it doesn't alter it. Just like saying brandy is the same as wine. Well, except it has some water removed. That said, RO operations and the industry as a whole seems pretty convinced that there's no flavor difference. Fine with me, I won't argue.

That said, yes,I think there's a market for more "traditional" syrup. This topic has been played out lots of times on the trader, but I feel that any of us are free to market our product however we like, although we should strive not to put down other production methods. That said, personally I'd never but syrup from an oil-fired operation if I had the choice. It sounds like you're making about a gallon of syrup/hour on 2.75 gallons of oil. That's a lot of oil. Might not be out of line for industry standards, but personally I'll save the oil for the tractor. To get the traditional market, you almost have to be using flat pans and definitely cooking with wood.

[maple flats]

Double blind taste tests by professional taste testers have not been able to identify which syrup was RO'd and which was not ro'd. Personally I suspect those who may think they can tell a difference are using their imagination rather than their taste buds. While I sometimes RO to 15% and only once to about 18% (my RO did not do well at 18%, it took a long clean up to get it back running) I don't think even 20 or 22% can be detected in the taste. The rest still has plenty enough time to caramelize in the pan before it reaches 66.9+% sugar. The only difference might be that far more Golden, delicate taste is made than Very Dark, strong taste is made. Unless I run out, most of my sales lean towards Dark, Robust Taste, followed by Amber, rich taste and then Very Dark, strong taste. I still have Light Amber on my shelves from last year, and I only packed 5 gal, the rest was blended to make Medium Amber (essentially about the break points for the new Amber, rich taste.
I don't think I have ever had anyone comment on RO use, they just marvel at the taste of the samples I give out, in little sample cups then they buy the taste they liked best. Back in 2008, I did have one customer who just had to have a gal. of Light Amber, did not taste anything, I was out of all sizes over 1 qt. and they left. That may be my only sale loss I ever knew about (however, that year I had unbelievable results from Maple Weekend, and my shelves were almost bare, we were bottling Medium to order until that ran out too. (the power of free advertising, 3 articles in the biggest local paper, including a 3 page spread in a special magazine section the week before the Maple Weekend date).

[mapleguy]

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not knocking anyones methods, I'm just repeating what people have asked me. Imagine for instance, someone walking into your operation and see filter aide being dumped into your product. People in general have no idea what goes into making syrup and they may (in this instance) question what goes into what they are consuming. Just my thoughts.

[Edson jones]

Thank you all for your input , just feeling out the discussion to r.o or not to r.o . As to the foam I know no foam is good , but looking for an explanation thanks again an to all good luck on a successful year.

[Sugarmaker]

I just started using filter aid with a press mid way through last year. I needed to filter some syrup during our open house. I added the filter aid as needed and filtered as folks were watching. My wife said one person commented that they were not sure about the additive of the filter aid. Did I lose a customer? Maybe, not sure? If a lot of folks got to see all of the methods used to make food products, I am sure some would not like what they see.
Continue to educate folks about the different methods of syrup production and let them decide. I think that is about all we can do.

Regards,
Chris

[brookledge]

I will give you an exampe that I had last week. First of all I have an RO. Last weekend we had maple weekend and I got a small amount of sap that I normally would wait another day until I had more. Anyways I boiled for 5 hours with raw sap and made about 18 to 20 gallons. The syrup graded out the exact color and taste as my previous batch with RO sap and since then back to normal boilng at 11% for me. I'm my worst critic with flavor.
And flavor of syrup with wood fired vs oil fired there is no difference with todays arches. Granted old arches that were not air tight etc. would send a lot of smoke out cracks and could swirl around in to the steam cloud. When I open my door to add wood there is no smoke coming out like I used to get many years ago. Sort of like the debate of using used motor oil. Your not spraying the oil into the pans. I don't see the difference between that and oil.
sorry I got a little off topic
Keith

[mellondome]

Till they see the container of white powder and ask when in the process you add the confectioners sugar.

[n8hutch]

I have experienced very little foam this year also, I don't know if it is the chemical make up of the sap where it was such a cold winter. Or maybe it is the fact that we haven't had any big runs or real warm weather. There hasn't been much to skim out of the sap pan either, just good clean sap.