Slightly Burnt Syrup Pan

[Flatfoot95]

Was boiling everything down tonight to drain my pans for the upcoming cold snap. Suddenly there was smoke starting to come from one of the middle channels of my syrup pan. The levels in the float compartmens were fine running about 11/4 in. There were a lot of bubbles when this happened don't know if that had anything to do with it or not. I am a little baffled as to why this happened. Any ideas? Fortunately there was only some burnt areas on the solder in the joints. Cleaned up well and no warping.

[Dave Puhl]

I am no expert ..my new 2x6 this year did the same but no burn ..uneven fire in the box to hot in the center maybe...did you have a gradiant before this happened if not...each compartment should be darker than the next going to the syrup side..I had a ordeal not watching it close..the temp said 220 plus , and I went to draw and only a dribble came out I had to reach around and push the float down to get more sap coming in finally it pushed the syrup to the draw off side...did you really have an inch or more in the pan...another ordeal was the float stuck and I only had a 1/4" in the syrup pan ..that was a close one too...

[Flatfoot95]

There is no doubt about having atleast an inch in the pan. I was actually standing right over it when it happened. I was thinking that maybe when my brother started it he didn't reverse the sugar and maybe I had a build up in the middle.

[WF MASON]

If its foaming up, it an't in the bottom of the pan boiling. Chances are it went past syrup in the center section before your drawoff. The guy in CT. who won the 'worlds best' syrup award , maybe twice, has an thermometer fitting in each of his four compartment. The two center fittings are welded in on an angle in the face of the pan. He can check his thermometers to see whats happening in the center. Not a bad idea.

[Fred Henderson]

As the old say goes there are syrup maker that might burn a pan and then there are syrup makers. Luck was with us all this year. Murphy's Law, anything that can go wrong will and at the worst time.

[Sugarmaker]

Seems syrup in the center sections can happen to just about all of us. Just something that has to be watched. And as a safety item have a bucket of sap near by for those OH my GOSH situations. Glad you did not hurt the pan.
Do you have open front pan or Hood? Hood sometimes restrict the viewable pan area, ( Like mine) and I have to watch this close. I will do a Apron test once in a while in the center section to see if it is close to syrup. That is usually a good quick indicator along with color darkening and bubble shape and color changes.

Idea of the thermometer in each section is good too!

By the way I scorched the front pan the first time I started up this evaporator that we have now. Fire was very hot and I did not have enough sap depth. It made sap to syrup in about 40 minutes and syrup to charcoal in about 2-3 minutes. Then about 2 hours of scrubbing and fuming.

Sugarmaker

[powerdub]

This has been a strange year for syrup flow in the pan. We have had more close calls than I can remember in one year. The stuff quits flowing in any compartment it wants. Our pan is two years old and is warped and has more blackmarks on it. I hate to admit it but we have torched that thing good this year and if we don't melt it down I will be surprised. I am going to call Glen G. and add one more constant to his line up and that is constant bubble watcher.

[Russell Lampron]

I too was the victim of a scorched pan. My son and I were boiling and my wife was gathering sap. She was very cold so I sent her down to the sugarhouse to get warmed up while I went to get the last load. I could smell it as soon as I got into the driveway. When she heard me pull in she came running up hollering Russ get down here quick. By then it was too late. My son had it under control by then but felt awful bad.

That pan is still sitting out in back of the sugarhouse. My former son in law had scorched it even worse and warped it pretty bad about 4 or 5 years ago. Fortunately I have a spare front pan.

Dark syrup is hard stuff to boil sometimes. This season I have seen a lot of strange things. The last time I boiled everything went smooth like I was making light syrup and it was the darkest syrup of the season (except for the burned stuff) so far.

Russ

[3% Solution]

Good morning,
I came close to toasting my pan last weekend, we were taking off "B" syrup.
It looked like syrup, so I checked it, it wasn't, then the foam dropped and then it dropped even more.
We could start to get a wiff of that unpleasent smell, so I started to bailing sap and cought it just in time.
Emptied the pan out the next day and found we had caught it, just started to burn. It came right off and back on the road again!!
Russell how cold did it get at your place last night?
How is this year compared to your average years?
Looks like this week maybe sugaring weather!

Dave

[Flatfoot95]

I have an open front pan and was literally standing over the pan when the smoke started to rise. That's why I was able to catch it so early and flood the pans. The draw off compartment was still about 1 deg away from a draw. Even with changing the concentrations in the compartments at shutdown for reversing the flow I have had problems in the later parts of this season with sugar building up in the middle. Nothing like this though.

[brookledge]

With all the burnt pans this year it is a reason to consider buying a autodrawoff with high temp and low level alarm especially if you have a oil fired unit. The cost of it will be less than having to buy a new syrup pan.
Mine has saved me from problems when it goes into alarm.
Keith

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

A couple of things you can do to help prevent this is one to keep a gallon bucket of sap always within arms reach and throw a little of it in and it will kill it in about .5 seconds.

The main thing if you are having problem with it trying to make syrup in the center like I was at the end of the season, start drawing off 1 or 2 degreees early and this will start pulling the gradient towards the drawoff end. Draw off at the speed necessary to keep it from making syrup and trying to scorch in the center section. It will be a little light at first, but by the time the draw off is finished, the syrup will probably be heavier for a while and even out in the total draw. Better to have to boil it a little extra in a gas finisher vs ruining the syrup or damaging the pan.

[Fred Henderson]

Brando, I want to make it a little heavy in the evap so I don't have to boil it again in the canner. All I have to do it dilute it with distilled water off the preheater.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Fred,

I have my thermometers set about 1 degree too heavy. I set them up when I set up the evaporator and have never changed them since in 4 years other than adding a degree to them. I live having syrup a little to heavy too because I usually only can 2 or 3 times, so I hold the drawn off syrup in 5 gallon buckets.

But, to advoid a scorched pan or making syrup in the center section with dark syrup, I would draw off a little early. If you are going longer than you should to get a draw and all other things equal, might want to start drawing slowly to get the gradient moving towards drawoff. It will help advoid problems.

By the way, how is the evaporator working now?? Must be working great for you??

[Fred Henderson]

Brandon, I am getting the hang of the new evap. The last 2 times we boiled we (she & I) were both more relaxed. But we are not getting much sap to work with. Going to look into cross flow pans for next year.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Fred,

Sounds good. It just takes time as a flued evaporator is a different beast. Once you get the hang of the reverse flow pans, you will likely be happy with them too. Either way, glad it is working out for you.

[3% Solution]

Good deal Fred.
Glad your enjoying that beast now.
We're planning on a new airtight (or more than now) arch next year, so I would imagine that will be a bit hotter and I will have some breakin time there.
Also if the expense account permits we'll be adding a home built steam-away, so more learning with that.
I can't afford to pull out any more hair, so hope things go smooth!
Happy boiling!

Dave

[Fred Henderson]

With the luck that I have been having the forest tent catapillars will probably devastate the maples and I will be out of it for a few years.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

PMS(positive mental attitude)

[Fred Henderson]

I spent 3 days in my bush last summer with a turbo torch taped to an 11' 2"x2" burning worms. That my friend is PMS.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Way to go Fred!!!!!!!!

[ibby458]

I'm thinking a custom made cross flow pan for us next year too. Got some more thinking/researching to do, but I like the idea of the syrup channel being over the hottest part of the fire. The way it's looking on paper now, it'll be a 3 channel setup (on a 30x30 pan).

Also going to try to get a peak at a reverse flow, same side draw off pan to see how that works.

[Fred Henderson]

Of all the reverse flow outfits that I had worked around I never realized that they made syrup in the middle like this one does. I am going to contact Patrick and see what he has got for a price on cross flow pans. If I get one from him maybe I can sell my reverse flow pan to someone that wants to make syrup in a flat pan. They is a lot of things up in the air right now. I plan on going to Leaders open house. I just need a mini vacation. First I almost burn up my new evap, then the water line and now the food freezer S&*T the bed. Got to go find a new freezer this morning.It never rains but it pours.
Got big Tom turkeys struting in the yard and no freezer to put him in.

[802maple]

I guess you will have to put them directly in the oven. Hope things get better for you

[Fred Henderson]

Thanks 802, but things can get worse but I sure hope that they don't.

[Homestead Maple]

Fred,
Sometimes my oil fired evaporator will have some syrup in a middle partition before the draw off partition next to it. What I do is draw a little, (quart or two into a stainless pitcher) and slowly put what I have drawn back into the partition that is the furthest from the partition that I will be drawing syrup from. When I say slowly I mean a steady but not quick pour. The oil fire heat is so intense right in the middle of the syrup pan that on start up, syrup will come sooner there sometimes. Once I get that flow going it is fine from there on. It doesn't happen every time but depending on how close to syrup you are sometimes when you shut down after a session of boiling it can happen. Don't ladle some syrup over from one partition to another, that seems to upset the normal flow. Just draw a little as it would normally flow. This is advice that I was given by Glenn Goodrich and Gary Gaudette. Best of luck to you.

[archangel_cpj]

Have an oldtimer and I watch him and learn more than talkin to him when it is getting twards syrup he takes the scoop and pushes it along ever so slightly he says it keeps the syrup from pooling and in the 10 years Ive known him he has never burn a pan.

[Fred Henderson]

I have done both of what you guys are telling me and it does help. Also because ot the problems I was having with the syrup thermometers I switched to a digital. Now when I see 222 I check it with a hyrdomometer and when I see 223 I start to draw ever so slowly, just a trickle. If I see 224 I increase the draw stream a little more. The digital can be off as much as 1.8 deg and the weather has been wreid this season. Just a shift in the wind and the boil point changes. But the hydro don't lie.

[tapper]

I have been doing the slowly pushing the scoop in the direction of flow thing. From what I have been told that can pull less condensed sap from the flue pan possibly making more of a mixture problem. You are better off to actually scoop from the center sections and slowly pour it into the syrup section. I have seen it done both ways. The scoop and dump method is supposed to work better.