How high concentrate can i run in 3.5x14?

[farmrelated]

Hello folks first post here. Ive studied a lot here and have learned a lot. We will have 3000 taps this year and 4000 next year. Looking at a 900 RO. Currently have a 3.5x14 Small brothers evaporator. Looking at a same size Chinook or Intensofire. The plan is to run 15% concentrate through the new evaporator however would our old one work for that? Its got a 10 foot flue pan and a 3.5 foot flat pan. Its very inefficient but would it work for a year till we could cough up the $ for a new evaporator? Thanks guys.

[maple flats]

yes, you can run 15% concentrate thru the old rig without issue. Many run 18-20% thru them. Then you could buy new pans in a year or 2. Consider Thor, in Quebec or Smokey Lake in the US.

[nymapleguy607]

You might consider a larger syrup pan, and I think you would want a 2nd pan so you could switch them out to clean them. With that high of concentrate you will have alot of sugar sand.

[wiam]

I have a 3x12. 4' revolution front pan. I run 17-20%. Most days this year I did not have to drain front pan to clean. I usually reversed pan at start of boil. That is on 1900 taps. Last year I concentrated the same on a 2x6. Front pan emptied every 3 hours and cleaned. You should be fine to run what you own.

[wiam]

And you will need more filter capacity boiling concentrate.

[farmrelated]

Yes we have a 10 inch filter press coming and a 35 gal water jacket canner so we should be able to keep up that way. My flue pan is still lead so i need to get a new one. Thanks for the info guys.

[wiam]

I am happy with my Thor pans I got last year. And price was very good.

[motowbrowne]

I am happy with my Thor pans I got last year. And price was very good.

I called CDL and Thor for some quotes on complete rigs. Thor came in 36% lower... that's a huge difference.

[ennismaple]

Hello folks first post here. Ive studied a lot here and have learned a lot. We will have 3000 taps this year and 4000 next year. Looking at a 900 RO. Currently have a 3.5x14 Small brothers evaporator. Looking at a same size Chinook or Intensofire. The plan is to run 15% concentrate through the new evaporator however would our old one work for that? Its got a 10 foot flue pan and a 3.5 foot flat pan. Its very inefficient but would it work for a year till we could cough up the $ for a new evaporator? Thanks guys.

That's the exact dimensions of our Force 5. We run 2 towers and often recirculate for a few hours before we send concentrate to the feed tank so we're likely boiling about that percentage. We have no issues.

You will get a lot of niter but that's easier to deal with than boiling hours longer than necessary. You'll wish you had a second front pan pretty quickly because cleaning the same syrup pan every day gets to be a pain.