Steamaway owners-How Do you Clean?

[Bruce L]

Considering getting a steamaway next, we tend to have a lot of nitre in our bushes. To clean our pans I fill them with sap, and let it ferment,I realize that this is not an option with the steamaway.Is there much nitre buildup during the season with a steamaway?. What about the hood? Last time I had a hood on with a preheater the inside of the hood was all browned up from the nitre, foam etc, which may not be an issue now with defoamers? Any issues with your steamaways,sap feed, cleanliness,efficiency drops or anything?
Thanks in advance for the replies

[nymapleguy607]

This past season was my first year with the Steamaway, I cleaned it once during the season during a cold spell. Cleaning is pretty easy with these things, all that needs to be done is shut off the valve to the flue pan, flood with water and turn on the blower. The Steamaway puts out a ton of distilled water so it does a heck of a job cleaning off the niter that builds on the steam pipes. This year at the end of the season I filled the Steamaway like normal and added a 1/2 cup of milkstone remover and let it bubble for a day, the pan cleaned up and looks just like new without any scrubbing. The only area I needed to scrub was on top of the steam manifold there was a little burnt sugar that had splashed out. As far as operating goes they are pretty simple, when adding defoamer you need to add it directly into the Steamaway and not in the float box because the sap intake is below the surface so the defoamer would just sit in the float box. I didn't need to use anymore defoamer than I would normally. My Steamaway added about 32 gallons an hour to my evaporation rate to give me and overall of 72gph, that number stayed the same through out the entire season, so it was an 80% increase in efficientcy. Sap was feeding the flue pan at about 190 degrees with very little drop when firing or drawing off. Overall I am exteremly happy with my Steamaway, they are quite expensive but well worth the money in my opinion.