Is a steamaway worth it?

[coyote]

Looking to get a steam hood and preheater for my 2x4 flue pan. Is it worth jumping all the way in and getting a steamaway? The charts say it will give me another 20 gph. That would definitely be worth it to me. Does anyone have any real production numbers on evaporation gain from a steamaway?

[mellondome]

For the money, an ro is a better first buy...after a hood and preheater. Spend 2k on a small home built ro (4x40) and only run it while you boil will increase your "boil" rate by 75gph. Add the fact that it also works when you arent firing the evap, and that number increases.

Couple years ago I had the debate of steam a way or ro. After you run the numbers, ro will outproduce the steamaway anyday.

[n8hutch]

I have neither A R.O. or a Steam away. I think it all depends on what you want to do & how you want to make syrup, certainly A RO is going to gain you more for your buck. But depending on your situation a steam away has benefits also, virtually a never ending supply of hot water. Being one, you don't have to buy or find/repurpose tanks for permeate & consintrate. You might clean a steam away once a year, you don't have to heat a steam away/ or keep it in a heated room. Less maintenance for sure with a steam away. Maybe you don't have adequate power for an RO, there are lots of reasons one might go with a steam away over an RO, and there are lots of reasons to go the other way & get an RO instead. I personally think both are good investments. A steam away may hold its value better.

[brookledge]

Many good points so far. Another factor to look at is can you put in a bigger evaporator. Small units like yours hold their value. So it might be cheaper for you to sell yours and buy a bigger one that has more capacity than the extra 20gph that the steam a way would do. Again like the others said it depends on your sugarhouse and space you have
Keith

[coyote]

I already have an RO and a bigger evaporator is not a possibility. I am just trying to decide if the added cost of a steamaway is worth it over a hood and preheater.

[TheMapleMoose]

I already have an RO and a bigger evaporator is not a possibility. I am just trying to decide if the added cost of a steamaway is worth it over a hood and preheater.

We put a parallel flow heater in the 2x4 flue pan hood on our old 2x6 maxflue oil fired. We were at 42gph without it and 60gph with it. We got a lot better increase in efficiency than they claim you should, but that's what we found. The RO had to be set on 1gpm of concentrate to keep up with it.

That's a 40% increase in gph. The steamaways claim 75% I think. We do 130gph on our 3x8 max flue rear fired with no preheated and Leader says the steam away on that should take us to 210gph. +60%

A steamaway also increases your concentrate by 50% (so they tell us). So if you feed it with 8%, your flue pan will be getting 12%. So you not only increase the evaporation rate, but also drop the syrup ratio. The combination of the two is where you get the value I believe.

Someone who owns one might have a lot more insight than me. All I know is what the salesman tells us, but he hasn't led us wrong yet.

[eagle lake sugar]

We put a parallel flow heater in the 2x4 flue pan hood on our old 2x6 maxflue oil fired. We were at 42gph without it and 60gph with it. We got a lot better increase in efficiency than they claim you should, but that's what we found. The RO had to be set on 1gpm of concentrate to keep up with it.

That's a 40% increase in gph. The steamaways claim 75% I think. We do 130gph on our 3x8 max flue rear fired with no preheated and Leader says the steam away on that should take us to 210gph. +60%

A steamaway also increases your concentrate by 50% (so they tell us). So if you feed it with 8%, your flue pan will be getting 12%. So you not only increase the evaporation rate, but also drop the syrup ratio. The combination of the two is where you get the value I believe.

Someone who owns one might have a lot more insight than me. All I know is what the salesman tells us, but he hasn't led us wrong yet.

I've been wondering about using a steam away with concentrate. Would the niter build up in it? How would you clean it? It's one of the options I've been weighing as I expand. Maybe some steam away users could elaborate.

[nymapleguy607]

I was in the same boat as you last year. I ended up buying a Steamaway and I will say I was nervous that I might have made the wrong decision, but after this season all I can is it was money well spent. The numbers in Leaders chart are extremly conservative. Before the steamaway I was boiling about 42GPH average, that was keeping the stack around 1400. This year with the steamaway it was 72gph and I ran the stack at 1050. This is with a standard flue pan and the standard steamaway. With an RO you should really be able to chew through the sap. Any questions feel free to PM me

[JoeJ]

I have a 3 x 10 oil fired that does 85 gph without my steamaway and 140-145 gph with the steamaway. Even with my RO, I would not go without the steamaway. Efficiency wise, the burner uses 7 gph of oil at a cost of about $21 to $25 per hour, evaporates 85 gph of sap and the steamaway cost $.10 an hour to run and evaporates 55- 60 gph. I usually concentrate to 15% and the steamaway brings the 15% to 21%.
I have found that it is best to clean the steamaway every 3 boils if I want to keep the niter off the tubes and not run into trouble cleaning it. I have a lot of sugar sand and niter so I have to clean my front pan at least every 3 boils or maybe 2 boils if there is a big run. For myself, it is a lot easier to clean the steamaway 6-7 times a year rather than once with a huge amount of niter on the tubes.
If you clean the steamaway often enough, permeate is all you need with the blower on, otherwise only acid will clean the niter off if the build up is heavy.

Production wise:
2004 oil only raw sap 3.8 gal oil per gal syrup 2.5 gal syrup per hour (annual average with varying sugar content of sap)
2006 small ro 6 % con 1.6 gal oil per gal syrup 5.5 gal syrup per hour " "
2009 ro + steamaway 8 % con 1.04 gal oil per gal of syrup 7.25 gal syrup per hour " "
2015 ro + steamaway 15% con .35 gal oil per gal syrup 20.25 gal syrup per hour (very high (for me 2.3%) average annual sap sugar content)

[Camp]

I was looking at a sap raider but was wondering about just a preheater with a hood for much less $$$ any thoughts??

[nymapleguy607]

I was looking at a sap raider but was wondering about just a preheater with a hood for much less $$$ any thoughts??

A preheater will only warm the incoming sap, a steamaway or sap raider will evaporate some of the water and raise your sugar a point or so. That is assuming raw sap, the sweeter the sap the better the gain.

[nymapleguy607]

Here's a picture of my evaporator and Steamaway