Evaporator, Arch and Finishing. Lots of questions. :-)

[Homer Allman]

Question #1
I'm pretty new to maple sugaring. This is my 3rd season. All previous seasons have been with a flat pan. This year I am trying a raised fluted pan that is 2 foot x 6 foot long and has a 2 foot square finishing pan above the fire box. It requires 25 gallons of sap to fill all the floats, flute pan and finish pan. My average sap runs are 200 - 250 gallons, so that is barely enough to get syrup in the finish pan after all the evaporation has taken place that can without burning up the pan. It usually takes 60-70 gallons of sap per gallon of syrup. So you can see I'm working with 3-4 gallons of syrup once all is said and done. What do I do when I run out of sap. I still have at least 20 gallons to evaporate to get my 3-4 gallons of syrup. I'm guessing, I do not want to run the level lower than the top of the flutes or can you?. What I do now is let it cool and drain it and finish in a kettle. Is there a better way.

Question #2
The wood I want to use is oak and locust, so you know that is hot burning stuff. However I can't get my pan to boil good with it. I have split it into real small pieces and still it doesn't get the main pan that hot. I get strips of pine and poplar from the cabinet shop that is not that good of wood BTU wise, but it makes that pan boil really good. However they burn up in minutes and I have to do it again. every 5-6 minutes. What am I doing wrong? The fire box gets it's air from underneath, There is a hole front and back.


Question #3
When I get my pan to boil it's best with the strips the last foot of the fluted pan still never boils. I understand that it probably never will boil where the raw sap comes in. This is the end up near the smoke stack. Should the sand up in the arch being smoothed out or rippled? How much room should have between the sand and the pan.


Thank you very much for taking the time to answer. Here in the western part of Virginia it is my worst sap season of the three I have done so far. I have put out 230, 5 gallon buckets using 450 taps. That's about three times as many as last year and sap flow has been sporadic at best. It's been too many 60's and not enough 20's. I drilled my first trees on January 1. Last year we made 30 gallons and with three times as many taps. This year we've only got 10 gallons so far. It's been a terrible season.

[psparr]

First answer is to do a lot more reading here. You'll glean a lot more info by reading through threads than by the few answers you'll get here.

DON'T run the level lower than the tops of the flues (flutes) it will ruin your pan.

When your done boiling down the sap you have, leave it in the pans. Just close off the flow between the flue pan and the syrup pan. If it doesn't have a valve, it may have plugs that go in the hole between the pans. When you have enough sap to run again, just fire it back up and continue boiling. You can leave the sap in the pan for a few days between boils.

Seems like your rig could greatly benefit from auf. Will get your fire hotter and increase your boil.

The sand under the flue pan should almost touch the flues. You want the hot gasses from the fire to go through the flues not under them.

[Homer Allman]

thank you so much. that did answer a lot of my questions. I have plugs in between my two pans. Again thanks so much. Flues are forever burned into my head. haha :-)


What is this AUF you refer to? I will search it here.

[Homer Allman]

More questions...

how far back should I run the sand bed from the stack close to the pans bottom. The arch does angle up as it gets near the stack.

psparr said the sand should be near the bottom of the pan to force the hot gases up into the flues. How far back should I have the sand nearly touching the bottom of the pan. The front boils good, just not the back. I do realize I need an exit for the gases to escape and to not seal that off. thank you for helping.

[barnbc76]

Auf= air under fire, some sort of a blower. I believe you want the sand all the way to the back, so it insulates and forces the hot gases to be in contact with your flues and pan.

[cfenton86]

Oak and locust may burn hot but they burn slow and create coals. Coals are bad, flame is good. If you do want to burn hardwoods it must be very dry, split small, and criss-crossed in the firebox. I usually burn pine mixed with hardwoods and I feed it every 4-5 minutes which is a good thing because it means you have flame

[Homer Allman]

thank you guys for the help.

[Big_Eddy]

Question #1
I'm pretty new to maple sugaring. This is my 3rd season. All previous seasons have been with a flat pan. This year I am trying a raised fluted pan that is 2 foot x 6 foot long and has a 2 foot square finishing pan above the fire box. It requires 25 gallons of sap to fill all the floats, flute pan and finish pan. My average sap runs are 200 - 250 gallons, so that is barely enough to get syrup in the finish pan after all the evaporation has taken place that can without burning up the pan. It usually takes 60-70 gallons of sap per gallon of syrup. So you can see I'm working with 3-4 gallons of syrup once all is said and done. What do I do when I run out of sap. I still have at least 20 gallons to evaporate to get my 3-4 gallons of syrup. I'm guessing, I do not want to run the level lower than the top of the flutes or can you?. What I do now is let it cool and drain it and finish in a kettle. Is there a better way.

Question #2
The wood I want to use is oak and locust, so you know that is hot burning stuff. However I can't get my pan to boil good with it. I have split it into real small pieces and still it doesn't get the main pan that hot. I get strips of pine and poplar from the cabinet shop that is not that good of wood BTU wise, but it makes that pan boil really good. However they burn up in minutes and I have to do it again. every 5-6 minutes. What am I doing wrong? The fire box gets it's air from underneath, There is a hole front and back.


Question #3
When I get my pan to boil it's best with the strips the last foot of the fluted pan still never boils. I understand that it probably never will boil where the raw sap comes in. This is the end up near the smoke stack. Should the sand up in the arch being smoothed out or rippled? How much room should have between the sand and the pan.


Thank you very much for taking the time to answer. Here in the western part of Virginia it is my worst sap season of the three I have done so far. I have put out 230, 5 gallon buckets using 450 taps. That's about three times as many as last year and sap flow has been sporadic at best. It's been too many 60's and not enough 20's. I drilled my first trees on January 1. Last year we made 30 gallons and with three times as many taps. This year we've only got 10 gallons so far. It's been a terrible season.

1) - It SHOULD only take 30-40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. 60-70 is excessive, even with early low sugar content sap. As Psparr said, fire until you have 20 +/- gallons of raw sap left (for cool down), then let the fire go out and close your valves. Start up again the next time you have >50 gallons of sap. NEVER let the sap level drop below the top of the flues.

2) If it's not boiling fast enough or hot enough, split it smaller. You don't want a bed of coals. You want flames. Time your firings so that you're adding wood at the same rate it's burning. Usually smaller wood and firing more often = hotter fire. On a 2'x arch -7-10 min firings are normal.

3) It's normal for the boil rate to be less at the back than the front. On a raised flue - you need space at the front for the flames to get up into the flues and a space at the back for the flames to get down out of the flues, and everywhere in between the sand should essentially be touching the bottom of the flues.

4) Mother Nature controls the weather. Make syrup when the sap flows.

[Homer Allman]

thanks Big Eddy for taking your time to respond. Unfortunately our sap is a little less that 2%. It's all we have to work with. I have fixed my sand bed thanks to the responses. Hopefully I will have some sap to collect tomorrow to try out all you guys suggestions, but these 60's aren't cutting it. It's been the worse year ever in Virginia.