Whats the payoff

[slimedart]

This is my second year of tapping. Last year I used propane to boil down this year I used wood surrounded by brick. This year I have over 4 gallons of syrup and I am really sick of boiling. I am ready to graduate from inefficient to something a little better. I have a fuel oil take ready to take the top off. So I wonder what the payoff is for a stainless steal evaporator vs. the buffet pans I see many use. I can get 4 buffet pans for $64. Where the stainless are 350+. I am trying to get syrup on the cheap for personal use and to gift away. I did 35 taps this year and I am going to pull them today so I don't have to boil anymore. I have enough trees to support 100 taps easily. My family enjoys this activity but the boils are getting tedious. I would like to see at least 10 gal per hour. What are your opinions.

[Big_Eddy]

Buffet pans give you flexibility. You can be boiling raw sap in one pan, and almost syrup in another. Very good for someone with a small operation where the amount of sap will vary from day to day. Very good also when the boils will be long and infrequent (weekend boiler) instead of daily.
Buffet pans require you to constantly move sap from pan to pan as it concentrates, or treat each pan as its own batch and keep topping them all up.

A single flat pan is best suited to batch boils and weekend boilers as well. It needs a minimum amout of sap before you can take it all the way to syrup in the pan - otherwise you hit a certain (lack of) depth and you have to take it off an finish elsewhere. Flat pans have the advantage of not requiring any movement of sap from pan to pan, and can be fed gradually from a tank or preheater with the valve set to a trickle. Flat pans have no sides in the flame path, so have no scorch line.

Divided flat pans allow for a gradient to develop, and therefore can be used with smaller amounts of saps, if left sweet between boils. Depending on the pan depth and the firing consistency, a good gradient can be established. If you intend to try to boil each day's sap as it arrives, a divided pan is recommended.

A flue pan setup increases the surface area and therefore the evaporation rate.By its nature, a flue pan setup can only run as a continuous flow evaporator, as it is not possible to take it all the way to syrup in a flue pan.

[red dorakeen]

That's an informative pro and con summation from Big_Eddy.

I'll add: when it comes to nearing the end of the boil reducing pans and pouring one into another can be a bit difficult.

Some sort of draw off would be safer than lifting a pan of boiling syrup out of a very hot arch and pouring it into a finishing pot.

[Sugarmaker]

You can make many improvements. Investing in a barrel evaporator will get you to the 10 gallons per hour. If you buy some pans and build the arch you will have several hundred dollars invested. Not to many maple producers can get syrup on the cheap! Seems it takes time and money and energy to get it made. Good luck with your syrup making and do have fun!
I would recommend the stainless pan you will make better syrup and safer too.
Regards,
Chris

[ryebrye]

This is my second year of tapping. Last year I used propane to boil down this year I used wood surrounded by brick. This year I have over 4 gallons of syrup and I am really sick of boiling. I am ready to graduate from inefficient to something a little better. I have a fuel oil take ready to take the top off. So I wonder what the payoff is for a stainless steal evaporator vs. the buffet pans I see many use. I can get 4 buffet pans for $64. Where the stainless are 350+. I am trying to get syrup on the cheap for personal use and to gift away. I did 35 taps this year and I am going to pull them today so I don't have to boil anymore. I have enough trees to support 100 taps easily. My family enjoys this activity but the boils are getting tedious. I would like to see at least 10 gal per hour. What are your opinions.

Any larger producers in your area who would be willing to take your sap? You would have to collect twice as much sap to get the same amount of syrup (assuming a producer let you trade sap for syrup) but you could just drop it off and leave.

It's not hard to get very good efficiency in sap collection if you have good slope. It's very hard to get good efficiency in evaporating unless you are going to spend serious money.

[Cedar Eater]

You said that you are tired of boiling. Is it a matter of being tired of tending the boil? I can go a full hour and often more between checking on my boils. I use two electric evaporators that combined draw 40 amps at 240 volts. I only get about 3.25 gph, but I have ways of increasing that up to 5 gph if I need to. But I add sap, set a timer on my kitchen stove or cell phone, and walk away for an hour. I don't have a lot invested but it does cost a lot to feed the energy to the boil. It's cheaper than propane in past years, but maybe not this year. There are several threads in the homemade equipment forum about building eVaporators. Fyreaway and I both found ways to use submerged heating elements which greatly increases efficiency and greatly reduces the effort even when compared to propane.

[maple maniac65]

It is cheaper to buy syrup than to make it on your on. If you add up all the time and money invested over the years. I make syrup because it is something that I love to do. Yes I have invested 100,000 on 650 taps and probably not going to make 150 gallons this year because I didn't catch the early runs. But that is why I have a real job that allows me to take a month off to play. A worse addiction might be the 65 antique maple cans or the two rooms of maple antiques. Or how about the three Wethers that eat
150 bales of 2nd cutting hay a year or should I say waste.

What I am saying is that you should enjoy making syrup first. If the process takes too long modify to your budget. Find friends to help. The financial payback on a small scale is a very long time because of equipment , time, and mother nature.

[asknupp]

Save your money up and plan to buy bigger. You sound like me when I started out a few years ago. I bought a 2x4 continuous pan for 60 taps. The next year I gained another 100 taps and thought "oh s&#t. So I bought a 2x4 drop flue to sit behind other pan. Next year I'll be sitting close to 400 taps and looking for a reverse osmosis machine. Honestly, no matter what you do. If you've caught the bug you will always have 10+ hour boils. Don't plan for next yr, try and plan for the next 3-4 yrs. 100 taps on a good run and you'll be swamped with a continuous pan. Might think about a hybrid pan or do like I did. Good luck

[slimedart]

Thank you for all the reply's and advise. I do really like making the syrup so I may have come off a little strong yesterday after my long boils. Its funny how on Thursday I boiled from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m and told my wife we are done and this process takes too much time. But guess what I was doing Friday, yep another 10 hour boil. For what ever reason Friday's boil was not as tiresome as Thursday. Monday was my final boil of the season and it was 12 hours. I think based on your input I will make the boiler with the buffet pans. The way I look at it I don't mind the work or the time but to do 3 10+ hour boils in five days burnt me out. If I can get efficient enough to boil 100 gallons in a ten hour span It will make me happy. And it sounds like the buffet pans will do that.

One of you mentioned trading the sap to a commercial place. I did that last year. We have one only a half mile down the road. My wife and I both prefer the taste of our syrup to theirs.

One other question is does sugar content stay consistent from year to year. I have been blessed with really high sugar in my sap. When Traded last year I had 50 gallons and the content was almost 4%. This year I boiled 116 gallons of sap and got 4 gallons and a pint. I don't know what the percentage is but that's about 30 gallons of sap to 1 gallon of syrup.

[DuncanFTGC/SS]

For me personally the payoff is getting off the winter couch and getting my butt out into the woods to get some exercise and get ready for the summer's activities. My first year It cost me the same price to make my own syrup as it would have cost to buy it outright, that was including the little bit of equipment that I had to buy. My second year I saved about 2 dollars per quart making it myself, progress! LOL
This year I am running right at 25.00 a gallon/6.25 a quart to produce syrup, including all costs. I am firing with propane and really liking that. I am paying 2.00 a gallon for fuel. If I would have had a bulk tank dropped off I would be paying half that for fuel. I am betting on propane being cheap for many years, maybe I will be right, maybe I will be wrong?
The last payoff for me is that I love to tinker, maple gives me many ways to tinker with stuff. I took a welding class just so I could learn to weld. I have welded my last two steel pans, still working on my TIG skills. Once I get a rig set up that works for how I want to boil, I will convert all my steel pans over to stainless. May even build a proper arch, I am using concrete blocks and yesterday hit 10 gph without a preheater for my sap. That is in the works for next year! LOL
After that will be the RO, Steam Away, Nice Shack, etc! :D

[seandicare]

I went to the steam table pans on a homemade arch this year (been using turkey friers past years) I used a 275gal fuel oil tank laid on it's side and cut in 4 holes for the pans to sit in and place a fifth on the back by the chimney to preheat. I am getting 5-6gph as long as I keep up with the fire, that is without any insulation or ramp in the back yet.

I am looking into converting the setup to fuel oil over the summer.

as for the transfer of sap between pans, or to pull out the near-syrup, I use a small pot to scoup it out, instead of lifting the pans.....MUCH safer

[Sugarmaker]

Where is the payback? I have met so many new friends making, and marketing maple syrup. Enter you syrup in local or national competition! It will make you a better sugarmaker and you can find out how you stack up in the maple world. Those long boils will take on a whole new meaning if you bring home a first place with your syrup at the county fair! I got a lot better at making syrup from this forum and competition too.
Also remember, no one wins the maple syrup race. We start at different times, end at different times, some walk some run some fly we all have different score sheets at the end of the season! Try to have fun along the way as we meet others making this wonderful natural product.
regards,
Chris