Boiling concentrate

[asknupp]

Joined the scorched pan club last night. Long story short. The needle started to move pretty quick for the first draw. Tried to flood pan and use skimmer to move gradient around but it was to late. My ? Is what depth do RO guys running at. I know should have had a OS bucket.lol Or any other good advice to running concentrate. First time using a RO.

[maple flats]

I run my front pan at 3/4-1" and the flue pan at 1/2-3/4" above the flues. As long as I opened all the valves I never had any problems.
One time I forgot to open the valve to supply the float valve for the front pan. Luckily it was minor but it could have cost me a pan. I have a spare syrup pan and I swapped it out and resumed with the second pan, with the valve open. Then I put permeate in the scorched about 1/2" deep and let it set a day. That removed some, but I did have to use milkstone remover to get the rest.
By the way, I RO to between 8% and 14% depending on how much sap I have.

[Sugarmaker]

I only boil 3% + sap from steam away. It can happen to anyone! Yes the OS bucket is a must! Also use it first. Don't worry about the syrup. You need the OS bucket to save the pan!
Welcome to the club.
Regards,
Chris

[Haynes Forest Products]

askknapp First Welcome to the club. The dues are way to high but I keep paying them. I have invented ways to screw up my pans. You would think I was getting paid to do it. Now I have a higher security clearance on the club just above your its called scorching your hood from the fire in both your finish pans. So bad I had them sand blasted clean and pounded them back into shape with a 4x4 landscape timber on the barn floor. Now that time I forgot to open the transfer valve so keep that baby in your thoughts every time you start up. Now boiling concentrate is a whole different animal. you might need to reduce your heat. Some rigs just boil to hard like mine I cant run my oil gun on high fire or I will have both finish pans full of the dreaded big shiny foam. Next you need a better draw off system so you can keep it moving faster so flue sap enters the finish pan faster. Yes deeper will help but once you get it figured out you can tweak it.

I think having it deeper in the flue pan so it pushed into the finish pan quicker is a option. My rig makes syrup in both finish pans so at times the first channel from the flue pan will make syrup and then things get crazy because you have over density syrup starting to boil over and the draw off isnt responding because its reading buy the valve area that isnt to density.................I HAVE KNOW IDEA but I think its at start up that causes this crazy duel gradient problem......................OH CRAP Chuck dont start with that. But when your gradient (sugar content) and your Gradient (slope of the liquid level) are both stuck at the same levels your rig will go bonkers. So at start up you have to be super vigilant and dont let your guard down.

[Haynes Forest Products]

OH YEA all 3 of my new finish pans I got when I scrapped the old ones are wrinkled and slightly scorched.

[asknupp]

Haha. I don't think I want to become part of your mile high club Haynes. The pan cleaned up good but I don't think I escaped warpage. Sitting on saw horses and at eye level the corner where draw off valve is has raised up atleast 1/4"-1/2". Can I weight down the other three corners and put some force on raised corner to correct or is there some magic trick?
Sugarmaker there will be a OS bucket on hand from here on out.
Haha and Flats I don't trust myself with 1% sap to run that low.lol I think I'll start running with 2.5" until I start to draw and as comfort level comes back then start to bring it down.
Thanks for comments
Andy

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Until you get gradient established may be a good idea to start drawing off little light to get syrup moving towards drawoff.

[unc23win]

Brandon brings up a good point. I always draw off light and help things along.

2.5 is pretty deep and the issue then would be you could get a huge draw. Huge draws slow things back down a lot which sort of defeats the purpose of running higher concentrate. Most of the time the temperature goes up a few degrees (more with a huge draw) as you draw and then goes back down. You might even want to change your draw off temperature.

Myself I run 1.5" in front pans. I had issues with huge first draws until I figured out (with help) that I was allowing mixing to occur after shutting down because I didn't put plugs in.

[asknupp]

Does anyone have a trick to straighten the warp I described above. Looks to be 3/8" or so?

[mellondome]

Chuck uses landscape timbers. .lol

[Haynes Forest Products]

There isn't a lot you can do because the metal is expanded. Now there are guy's that can shrink metal and get things back into shape but then the heat crinkles it again.

When I pounded my pans back into shape it was the only way I could continue cooking. They were 3-4" out of wack and the dividers you coud stick you hand between.

I know the feeling you going thru ist the first dent in your new car. BUT 3/8 ain't nothing the pan is fully functional and yes if its tweaked up in one corner you can get that out by twisting it. I have never seen a set of pans that get used that are all straight and shinny like the day they were made its not possible.

[ennismaple]

We run the syrup pan at 2" depth and the flue pan 1" above the top of the flues. We're feeding concentrate that's over 10% and didn't really notice a difference from when we ran 6-8%. In fact it seems easier because we get more frequent runoffs and don't get batching.