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Highpointfarm
02-12-2016, 02:59 PM
Hello everyone
I have learned a lot reading through here over the past year. Last year I had 37 trees tapped and boiled over an open fire in a 2x4 flat pan and finished on propane burners. I am upgrading to a leader 2x4 with wse pans this year and plan on doing around 100 trees. At this point I am looking for a cheap and easy way to preheat the sap at least alittle before it goes into the syrup pan. I was going to try the copper pipe around the stack but after reading on here in not sure if I should. I hope to have a steam hood made for next season at which point I can build a "regular" preheater. Any simple ideas to get the sap a little hotter before it goes in the pan?
Thanks


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Helicopter Seeds
02-12-2016, 03:46 PM
An Idea I was thinking - have not tried yet - use the copper pipe around the stack, but filled with plain water, and have the pipe continue with a coil in your holding preheat tank. Would require a reservoir and a pump, and then it won't run dry, won't burn sap inside it. Fountain pumps are pretty cheap, run a low flow. I was going to use an igloo cooler for the reservoir, submerse the fountain pump that I have, and have the return go back into the cooler. Alternately, I would use two lengths of black pipe inside the flue.
Other area of waste is the steam itself. So to rig up a heat exchanger unit above the steam, ensuring you don't drip back into your pans, is worth considering. If you are good with sheet metal, it may be worth a try.