Getting the best boil on a Smokey Lake 2X5 hybrid?

[Marvel26]

I had my first boil last Monday!

I was happy to be finally boiling but I noticed that the front syrup section rarely boiled and if it did it was a light boil, some of this is due to the stock size of the pan vs the size of my oil tank evaporator, the front pan sticks out about an inch in the front this added to the angle takes up about 2" of the front pan.

The back syrup section boiled great but I noticed that the flue section wasn't doing well. I had geysers only at the very front of the flue section, hardly any boil in the back 2/3rds of the flue except right at the end of the flues where the stack started which boiled great.

My pan is 5 feet long so I have a stack that is 10' high (2feet per foot of pan rule) and I played with the stack direction to coincide with the wind in an attempt to get more draft but I seemed to have more luck when it was straight up. My fire box is 26" long and the grate is 18" below the pan. I have a Vogelzang barrel stove door with the draft door and the grate is just above the draft door which I left wide open. The entire firebox and arch is insulated with half bricks. I tried to keep the wood no larger than 4" in diameter and it was good dry hardwood.

116641166511666

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Rob

[Pibster]

How much of a space below your flues? It should only be an inch or so.

[Marvel26]

Pibster, I have 3/4" between the top of the brick and the bottom of the flues.

Rob

[Marvel26]

I was thinking that having the draft door wide open was allowing too much air in over a large area which stopped the draft effect. closing the door a bit may cause better draft....I think?

[1arch]

We like to use a mix of soft wood which ignites fast and burns hot. The hardwood carries through the second half of the fire up sequence.
This year I was experimenting with small limbs that we have had leaning up in a big shock for a couple years. I can get an extremely hot boil going in the front pan with branches 1" - 2" or so. A hand full would keep my temps up > 900 easy with hardly any thing in the box. I had to fire up more often but with such a small quantity of wood in the box the draft through the grates wasn't hindered like when the box is half full and licking up every bit of oxygen available.
Pallet wood also gets the front pan going so well I have to limit how much of that I throw in.

[mellondome]

Block off the front and back of your grates so all draft air has to go through the wood.. make your stack straight.. and find a way to protect your pans from any breeze. Use smaller split wood... 2-3 " and fire every 5 min..keeping firebox full to just under pans without touching them.
Also, brush the flues clean on the fire side before every boil.

[sams64]

I don't understand buying a big $$$ pan and not bothering to set up a $100 fan. There are lots of little things you can do, but, unless you add air it's probably not worth worrying about.

Sam

[Marvel26]

Everything in its own time, Sam, everything in its own time :-)

[lpakiz]

Marvel26,
Try smaller wood. 4 inches is too big. I have a half HP blower on my arch and will split anything over 3 inches that comes in the bundles of sawmill edgings. Lots of broomsticks and baseball bat sizes in the mix. Super dry helps, too.

[sams64]

That I understand, but, I am probably matching your evap rates with my home built arch and 2' x 3.5' flat pan. For $100 and about 20 minutes of work you will probably increase your evap rate by 50% or more.

Sam

[twitch]

AUF Blower !!!!

[Marvel26]

Block off the front and back of your grates so all draft air has to go through the wood.. make your stack straight.. and find a way to protect your pans from any breeze. Use smaller split wood... 2-3 " and fire every 5 min..keeping firebox full to just under pans without touching them.
Also, brush the flues clean on the fire side before every boil.

Thanks Mellomdome, This is what I need for this year.

[n8hutch]

Build your fire as close to the door as possible, and you can experiment with your draft door to make sure your not pulling your heat right up the stack, I also would close up the gap under the flue to a 1/4 inch, or a centimeter. My flues sit right on ceramic blanket

[bcarpenter]

Rob,
I have a slightly different set-up than you with only a 2x3 hobby pan from WF Mason but a lot of the advice you are being given is spot on.
* First I created a step up using firebricks and arch board in the back of my evaporator to help keep the height up on the pan.
* I have a straight stack 6' high coming of a 90 at the back of the evaporator.
* Dry wrist size pieces are key. What is do is log cabin stacking with larger splits for the first two layers at the bottom of the fire box and then continue the log cabin stacking with the smaller wrist size pieces to the underside of the pan. Every 3-5 minutes I add more wood.
* I have an ash door similar to yours and when I added AUF I noticed a significant increase in boil. What I did was take a Lasko floor blower fan (from lowes/HD) on its lowest setting, setting it a couple feet away and aimed it into the ash pan and instant AUF. Just remember to move fan prior to reloading with wood! Also this setup is probably only good for out doors, because a hot ember will blow out. I have my evaporator set-up on the driveway and will put some snow around the evaporator's ash door to catch any stray embers that are blown out.
* Lastly, I have been preheating my sap (about 1-2 gallons at a time) on my propane burner before loading into my preheater pan. Doing this allows me to dump sap that is anywhere from 150F to 200F into the evaporator pan which keeps more of my syrup pan boiling.

There is a lot watch and you get a system where very 3-5 minutes you re-start the process but it really helped my boil this year I would bet I am in the 8-10+ evaporation rate especially on a day like yesterday where it was 40-50F. Its hard for me to tell exactly because i use the 5 gallon bucket brigade and my buckets are filled somewhere between the 4-5 gallon range. I have tried to document my experiences with bricking, the AUF fan and other things on my blog/website so feel free to check it out! Every year you will tweak something a little more to get to get it right!

Bill C.



I had my first boil last Monday!

I was happy to be finally boiling but I noticed that the front syrup section rarely boiled and if it did it was a light boil, some of this is due to the stock size of the pan vs the size of my oil tank evaporator, the front pan sticks out about an inch in the front this added to the angle takes up about 2" of the front pan.

The back syrup section boiled great but I noticed that the flue section wasn't doing well. I had geysers only at the very front of the flue section, hardly any boil in the back 2/3rds of the flue except right at the end of the flues where the stack started which boiled great.

My pan is 5 feet long so I have a stack that is 10' high (2feet per foot of pan rule) and I played with the stack direction to coincide with the wind in an attempt to get more draft but I seemed to have more luck when it was straight up. My fire box is 26" long and the grate is 18" below the pan. I have a Vogelzang barrel stove door with the draft door and the grate is just above the draft door which I left wide open. The entire firebox and arch is insulated with half bricks. I tried to keep the wood no larger than 4" in diameter and it was good dry hardwood.

116641166511666

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Rob

[Marvel26]

Holy crap! What a difference!

I followed your set up Bill (minus the preheater) and I bricked in the grate and kept the wood small as per Mellondome's suggestion....this morning before the wind picked up I went through 55 gallons of sap in just shy of 2 1/2 hrs after the wind started and even though I had a garage between the pan and the wind my GPH went way down and I went through the remainder of the 140 gallons in ~4 hrs.

I can really see the benefit of a sugar shack to get out of the wind.

A pre heater would be great as I didn't have a boil in the part of the flue nearest to the float box opening. I had geysers jumping out of the pan at the front, a full boil to the 2/3rds mark and "just a boil" at the back and both syrup sections were a full boil all day long.

I noticed that as the coals built up the boil was more difficult to maintain at its max....the wind coincided with this so it may have been that or a mixture of the two. I also noticed that in the beginning when the boil was at its max there was a difference in height from the float box opening to the thermometer port in the syrup pan of almost an inch which was crazy. With the wind, the semi-syrup in the front pan deepened to almost the same height throughout which substantially increased my wait time for the first draw off, but when it happened it was a lot. After the first draw the pan went into continuous mode, I could probably have kept the valve open all afternoon as the temp was staying put the entire time but the sap level in the pan was only about 3/4" above the flues and just over the bottom of the valve port in the final syrup section which caused me to panic when I noticed it... so I gave it a shot of sap.

I was able to run off about 3.5 gallons of syrup. I ran it a little thick, 9 F over boiling, according to the thermometer but it looks thin. We'll see how it goes when my hydrometer gets here....my first one cracked as soon as it hit the hot syrup!

Thanks for the great info!

[sams64]

I was boiling in the wind and it was noticeably knocking down my boil on the exposed side. I took a piece of thin sheet metal and hung it over the side of my pan with small pieces of wire and it made a big improvement. I would suggest rigging something up and keeping it on hand for days like that.

sam

[Marvel26]

I am trying to convince my out-laws that they don't really need their storage shed....they do have a massive three bay garage with a full work shop so it might work

I have all summer to convince them, however, they are snow birds and I am the caretaker of the house and all out buildings when they are gone so there may be some adjustments in what that shed is used for while they are gone lol

[mapledavefarm]

We'll see how it goes when my hydrometer gets here....my first one cracked as soon as it hit the hot syrup!



Never heard of such a thing. Hydrometers are made for hot syrup. it must have been broke before it was put in the syrup.

[Marvel26]

When I called Smokey Lake to buy another one as I thought the same thing, Angela said that I was one of many in the last lot of hydrometers that had it happen. she thinks its a weakness in the glass. they are replacing this one for me. they have excellent customer service!

[FDA]

When I called Smokey Lake to buy another one as I thought the same thing, Angela said that I was one of many in the last lot of hydrometers that had it happen. she thinks its a weakness in the glass. they are replacing this one for me. they have excellent customer service!

Wow that's not good, did they say how many they have to recall from that hydrometer lot?

[Marvel26]

It wasn't a recall per say, she just said I wasn't alone in the cracking issue and they would replace it free of charge. It was only about 2 months old and Angela knew I hadn't used it prior to the crack as I didn't have my SL pan before then.