Defoamer use

[802maple]

I had the privilege of being able to tour several operations yesterday, and I came to one conclusion. I saw way to much defoamer being used at many of the them, so much in some, that I could smell it when I entered the sugarhouse. It seems that over the years, many sugarmakers just can't stand the site of even the slightest amount of foam in their evaporator and attack it like the Army in a shock and awe invasion of Afghanistan. The two that I found the taste of the defoamer the worst in, were one that the producer never set down the bottle of defoamer and the other had a dripper that was dripping about every 5 seconds. I left both of those sugarhouses with oily taste.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I put about 5 drops in the steamaway every 10 minutes and 5 drops in the float box for the flue pan. This usually takes care of the evaporator and a bottle of 8 oz defoamer will last 2 or 3 years.

[BreezyHill]

Personnally I only use as much as is needed to not have bubbles getting into the condensate rails of the hood of the flue pan and on rare occasion in the finish pan.

I totally understand that the bubbles slow the boil rate slightly but the taste of the finished product is sacrificed when to much deformer is used as you discovered.

[Amber Gold]

It's been in the 50-60's now for about a week. I can't help but use a lot more defoamer than I was when it was colder out otherwise it's foaming out of the flue pan. Is there an alternative to this?

[unc23win]

I hear you Josh I had really bad foam Saturday night interesting though Sunday was more normal after the first draw. I use Canola oil in my flue pan only I used a little more than normal Saturday but I can't taste it and can't say I ever have.

[Burnt sap]

We have never used anything other than cold sap in a spray bottle and it's so fine a spray it doesn't change the Brix or add to the boil time. Now with that said we only boil on a 2x6 wood fired unit my guess if using oil or gas it would be to hot for cold sap to work.

[tuolumne]

I have made 8-900 gallons each year for 3 years on a 4x12 Leader Inferno with a steam-away. I go through about 6-8 oz. of organic sunflower oil per season. One or two drops in the steam-away each firing, same in the flue pans as needed. One drop here or there in the syrup pan as needed. I run the flue pan an inch over the flues and the syrup pan about 1-1/4" to 1-1/2". This depth is fine as long as there is constant sap (as high as 8% for us) in and syrup out.

Observing other sugarmakers that are combatting foam, I think it may be that they are running too deep. I do not have much foam; in fact the flue pan often looks almost clear of foam much of the time. I may be wrong, but it seems that more evaporation occurs when there is less foam. Deeper sap makes more foam. Also, the auto-oilers I have used are very unpredictable. I prefer to manually add as needed. In general, a bit more oil is needed toward the end of the season.

[802maple]

I don't think it is so much that they are combating the foam, as I wouldn't have put any in, when the one was attacking it to the hilt and the one that was a constant drip said he had been doing it that way for years as he believed the myth that it boiled faster. I tried it years ago both ways with my oil fired evaporator and there was not any difference of amount of sap evaporated. I have no regular time that I put it in, I just make sure I don't boil over. I have done it that way for nearly 45 years and it works for me. If others have a way that works for them, that is great.

[Maplewalnut]

Deeper sap makes more foam.

Interesting...I have always found increasing the depth of the sap decreases my foam (and evaporation rate of course) I always thought it was the sap depth in correlation to a dirty pan bottom.

[GeneralStark]

I can't imagine foam inhibits the boil that much, but certainly to some degree. I switched to Atmos this year after having used vegetable oil for a couple seasons. I am using much less and it is much easier to clean the pans.

I am not personally super aggressive with defoamer once the pans are sweetened. For whatever reason my rig just foams like crazy when boiling fresh sap or fresh concentrate. I also tend to use more later in the season as the foam can come right out of the hood doors if I am not careful, especially when getting started.

I am experimenting this year with a defoamer cup in the flue pan and it seems to be working quite well. I end up only using a small amount of Atmos each boil and I don't have to manually add it every time I fire. I only rarely add defoamer to the syrup pans if the last channel is really foaming as I have scorched the pan with late season foam syrup.

Good to see you are out checking on other sugarmakers and keeping them honest 802. :) Stop by if you are out and about.

[jrthe3]

i rarely use defoamer unless front pan is going to foam over the dividers

[Russell Lampron]

With the bubbler in my evaporator I rarely have to use defoamer. I started a new bottle this year, 6 oz I think, and the bottle is only down about a 1/2" after 12 or 13 boils.

[ennismaple]

We add a pinch of the Kascher granular defoamer where the sap enters the flue pan every 7 minutes. If we miss doing it once the front pan will start to foam over the dividers half an hour later. By adding it where the sap enters the defoamer boils off by the time the syrup comes off the front.

What I have heard of is the liquid defoamer going bad because it wasn't refrigerated. The rancid defoamer can give an off taste to the syrup.

[saphound]

"my biggest fear is when i die my wife will sell my sugaring stuff for what i told her i payed for it":lol:

hey jrthe3...could you let me know when that happens please! :cool:

[DaveB]

We add a pinch of the Kascher granular defoamer where the sap enters the flue pan every 7 minutes. If we miss doing it once the front pan will start to foam over the dividers half an hour later. By adding it where the sap enters the defoamer boils off by the time the syrup comes off the front.

What I have heard of is the liquid defoamer going bad because it wasn't refrigerated. The rancid defoamer can give an off taste to the syrup.

I had no idea that it needed to be refrigerated. I usually buy a new bottle every year (cheap enough) but just keep it on my evaporator so it's handy after every firing.

I add a drop or two on each side of my flue pan after every firing and I've never had a foam problem. I've thought about an automated dropper but I kind of like my evaporator walk around to keep an eye on things.

[Bruce L]

I put 4 drops of defoamer in the flue pan where the sap enters every fire,occasionally the syrup pan might need a drop

[lakeview maple]

The Bubbler is the key, hardly any defoamer at all this year, maybe once a boil in the flue pan .

[tmessier79]

I've heard it both ways, and swear I've experienced it both ways as well...

What is your experience, does using Defoamer give you a faster evaporation rate?

[rayi]

I think some people run their pans so low that any amount of foam will change the amount of syrup hitting the thermometer and they are afraid to burn their pans

[Bucket Head]

Years ago I heard Glenn Goodrich speak about defoamer use. He said that many producers were using too much. He suggested making a 50/50 mix of defoamer and water to cut down on the amount of oil going in to the sap.

He said you can see it- he called it the "oil slick". You'll see a sheen on the syrup in the stock pot, canner, draw off pail, etc. or you will definitely see it when you peel the foam sealing disc off the top of a jug and see it concentrated and floating at the top.

Might be time to put the Quality Assurance hat on and open up a jug and see what the customer is seeing. I know when I first started out we had some batches that looked like what Glenn described.

Steve

[Bucket Head]

And Yes, foam certainly does adversely affect the boil rate. Foam is an insulator and boil inhibitor. Problem is foam never completely goes away. Everyone has to find that happy medium of a decent boil, with foam, and not foam going down the outsides of the pans.

Its not always easy (or fun) trying to find the happy medium!

Steve

[ennismaple]

I've heard it both ways, and swear I've experienced it both ways as well...

What is your experience, does using Defoamer give you a faster evaporation rate?

Assuming this question was for me - we almost never used defoamer before we got the Force 5. To get a hard boil with it you must use defoamer or the flue pan boils up into the rails of the steam hood and all the front channels in the syrup pan mix together. Without defoamer all you can do is simmer the pans.

[tmessier79]

I am set up with forced draft and get my pans really ripping. The comment about Defoamer going rancid is interesting because I'm using the same 6oz bottle I bought at Leader 4 years ago and have never refrigerated it. I don't use much, only enough to keep the sap in the pans. I've never noticed any taste but I may actually take a lick of the Defoamer straight to be sure.

The heart of my question lies in the following observations: when I use no Defoamer, my physically observable steam production is quite impressive. I can't see into the flu or syrup pan and the steam plume is 40 ft high. With just a few drops of Defoamer the foam immediately drops, the sap appears to boil harder and often flies right out of the flu pan. However, the odd thing is, the steam production cuts to less than half. With a very vigorous foam free boil I only get thin whispy steam production. I haven't ran a full day of boiling with vs without Defoamer to get a true comparison, so I can't say if the appearance of less steam actually represents less evaporation. Anyone actually done a systematic comparison? I'm really curious, does more visible steam mean more evaporation? If so, I say hands down more steam is produced with foamy pans thus better evaporation. Thoughts?...

[Super Sapper]

There may be more heat released with using defoamer making the evaporated water less visable.

[BnSmaple]

Every rig is different. I have a force 5 as well and defoamer is not a option its a must, at the start and end of season it doesn't matter how much defoamer used you have to simmer if you want to keep it in the pans

[Bucket Head]

Yes, Super Sapper is right. It goes back to foam being an insulator. Steam is invisible, that is until it starts to cool and it turns white. If you have ever looked through the window on a Steam-Away at the flues beneath, and it fits the pan tight, you didn't see any steam. But its there! With little or no foam and a light inside the hood, with a window to look in you shouldn't "see" steam there either.

[Jolly Acres Farm]

We don't use any defoamer. We are a small scale operation, and just deal with it. Plus it is a good indicator that we are close to another draw off.

[tmessier79]

Yes, Super Sapper is right. It goes back to foam being an insulator. Steam is invisible, that is until it starts to cool and it turns white. If you have ever looked through the window on a Steam-Away at the flues beneath, and it fits the pan tight, you didn't see any steam. But its there! With little or no foam and a light inside the hood, with a window to look in you shouldn't "see" steam there either.

Thanks for the feedback. So if visible steam isn't the ticket, rather the hardest boil possible, ill keep pushing the fire as hard as possible and use Defoamer as necessary to keep from boiling over.

[LittleEnnis]

Just a clarification on what ennismaple said: We always used defoamer before we got the Force-5, just not very efficiently. We had little cups held 8 inches or so above the liquid surface in the back pan. When we got a really hard boil, the foam would bubble up and hit the defoamer, bringing it back down. There were some problems with this, like getting foam all over the inside of the steam hood which was a pain to get off every night, or if we boiled hard we would eventually exhaust all of the defoamer in the little cups and I'd notice how I was boiling out of the doors in the steam hood. Our first year I needed to be told to fire a little less once or twice.

Now we just throw some in to the back pan where the sap comes in every 7 minutes and never see any problems. Besides listening to a really annoying alarm 8.5 times an hour for the entire day.

[802maple]

I know I am going to get some people that disagree with me, but I still feel it is a myth that that a evaporator boils faster when it is being defoamed. I did a test with my 5x14 oil fired evaporator once several years ago, with both a flow meter and timing my pumping to my 75 gallon feed tank which was run by a float switch. First with defoaming to keep all foam down for 2 hours and then defoaming only to keep from boiling over. There was no change in how fast the pump came on and the flowmeter stayed at about 4.75 gallons a minute through the whole period. I have noticed in many barrels of syrup I have purchased over the years the sheen that Glenn talks about.

[GeneralStark]

For me the defoamer is about keeping the sap and foam in the pans and not on the floor of the sugarhouse or on me and has nothing to do with boil rate. It's getting a little harder to do so at this point in the season but still making good syrup!