Is a 5x14 to big for 5-600 taps?

[MapleMill]

Looking at buying a 5x14 leader drop flue, traditional wood fired arch with a pre heater. Is this to big for that many taps.

[motowbrowne]

600 taps on vacuum would be reasonable on that size rig, I think. The rig would still be oversized, but probably wouldn't cause problems by being too large.

500 buckets on the other hand might not really work well. You'd be firing it up and shutting down pretty often I think.

Which are you looking at, and is there a potential for more taps in your future?

[Clamer33]

Besides the fact that on an avg days draw you would only boil for an hour or two, and on the those weak days you would be storing sap till you had enough to boil. I would say its too big. You should be around 2000 taps for a unit that size

[Russell Lampron]

Yes it's too big. It will take a lot of sap just to fill it so that you can boil and then you would need a decent run to boil again. Unless you are planning a major expansion I would think that you should be looking for a 3x10 or something in that size range. You might even consider a smaller evaporator and an RO.

[maple flats]

Too big. I have a 3x8 and I had a hard time getting enough sap for my first boil this year with 700 taps on vacuum. That is usually not the case, but it started slow this year for me.
You really want enough for a 3 hr. boil for your first boil just to sweeten the pans enough to protect the pans in a freeze. For me that is at least 250 gal for first of the season start. I kept getting between 80-150, but did not get 250 adding 2 day together. I was tapped on 1/20 so I was in early enough.
For a 5x14 I'd guess you would need at least 700 and 1000 gal would be more like it for the first boil. After that most of your boils would be so short that you would only likely make dark and very dark syrup because of the repeated heating before you drew any syrup.

[maple maniac65]

2x6 with a RO and a preheated for hot water would be ideal up to 1000 taps

[lastwoodsman]

A new high efficiency 2 x 6 and RO,RO,RO,RO -- At 225 taps mine hardy gets fired up at all I am planning on running 500 taps next year and have calculated I still would only be boiling 5 to 6 hours a day just a few more days.

My current evaporator is a dinosaur and now going to a Smokey lake corsair for my Smokey lake pans.

Before I would go to a larger evaporator I would by a larger ro to process sap faster to concentrate. A good 2 x 6 aof or auf can boil off 50 gPH with no problem.

Did I say RO??

Woodsman

[Brian Ryther]

not to big. room to grow.

[tmessier79]

I have taps enough to triple my size, but don't because of boiling time. I fully respect the value of RO, but simply favor big ol wood fired evaporators. I'm in the "bigger evaporator" camp.