Air injection in the syrup pan

[Mike]

Has anyone had any experience with air injection for the front pan?? Im thinking about making my own and would like some feed back on the subject........Thanks.......Mike

[325abn]

What would one inject air into the pan for?

[Sugarmaker]

No news for this old maple dog. Looking forward to hearing more. I have this gut feeling that you can get small improvements but there are so many other variables that it may be hard to gather good data on the results. Kind of like a blower on the evaporator. We have good natural draft at the sugar house and can run with only natural draft the blower just keeps the boil going a little better even during firing. All these little add on's can help. I think my next move would be to a steam away and try to jump from 80-90 gph to 140gph?? That I can measure!

My 2 cents

Some more pictures from 2007

Sugarmaker

[802maple]

It makes for better evaporation plus it lightnens the color of the syrup considerably

[Mike]

I hear it helps to keep the sugar sand from building up in the pan....I want to make it out of copper.....Can i have it sit on the bottom of my pan and would a aquariam air pump work?????

[Brian]

Yes it can sit on the bottom of the front pan. Glenn Goodrich has one, his is stainless steel. 1 1/4 copper pipe that goes across the flat pan with 2 holes drilled into the 1 1/4 copper pipe for each petition. then place 5/16? copper tubing into the holes drilled into the 1 1/4 copper pipe, then they have to be soldered. Carefully run the tubing straight down to the bottom and carefully bend a 90 deg. in each one, then run them along the bottom to the end and cap the ends. The holes in the copper tubing are about 1 1/2 inches apart the entire length. At the end of the run of the petition there is a croquet like wire thing that keeps the gap the same down the pan section.
For a blower, you can use a brand new shop vac with a hepa filter that comes with them and run them in reverse, you also need a ball valve on the incoming end of the 1 1/4 inch copper pipe to adjust the air flow. The other end of the 1 1/4 inch copper pipe needs to be capped. I hope this makes sense to somebody.

[802maple]

The main thing here is filter the air, as some sugarmakers with diesel vehicles idling, down draft from Oil fired evaporators or other bad smells in the area it will add that flavor to the syrup, so be aware of bad odors.

[mcmp]

For the sake of visual bubbles, lets assume the air injection system is installed but the evaporator is cold, no fire, no boiling.

What type of bubbles would i expect to see with cold sap;

Mild trickle of bubbles out of each hole
Fast stream of bubbles out of each hole
Heavy stream of Bubbles out of each hole
Very Vigourous Stream of Bubbles out of each hole

Is there any cooling effect to boiling sap due to the cool air injected

Is the consistant gain in Grade worth the work to fabricate the system

Thanks
Paul

[Sugar Daddy's]

What size should the air holes be and do the air holes in the pipes face up or to the sides?

[WF MASON]

They keep your pans alot cleaner, and thats a good thing.
I used to think the air filter was a big deal , the first bubbler I had seen was at Bascoms a few years ago , it was for a 2'x6',it had a filter plenum on it the size of the base stack. You could of drawn air from the s--- pile and it would of been clean. A big over kill. No one that I know of who has a steamaway attches the blower that feeds it out in the tractor shed directly over the tractor exhast stack. Most put it where clean air can be found, if there is down draft and smoke is sucked in , and I has to be from time to time, the sap is fine. Most blowers on the steamaway are big for any size unit, air for the bubbler can be taken from that to power the bubbler saving the price of the blower. Flat furnace filters to keep the bugs out work.
I know of a couple of bubblers being installed this year one in Barnet and one in Topsom.

[325abn]

What kind of increase in the evaporation rate are we talking about?

Seems this would be an easy home made job to rig up!

[802maple]

Bill
you are right about the steamaway and the piggyback as they both do the same thing ,but the bubbler is also in the front pan and I have seen first hand where it added a diesel exhaust flavor to the syrup when a tractor was left running near the blower outside. There is something about the exhaust being added to the syrup as it was being drawn off that it didn't have time for it to be boiled out. It was a very distinct flavor with no having to guess.

As far as the bubbles they are very vigorous. The first time I saw one of these, the sugarmakers had not had his fire going for about 45 minutes or more with a very little steam coming off the rig. He turned the bubbler on for me and in seconds you would have sworn that the arch had a fire under it, as I could not believe how much steam was coming off it. I put my finger in the sap and it couldn't have been more than 140 degrees.

As far as syrup color another local was making dark syrup and about mid season he put in a bubbler and immediately went to light so he turned it off to test and it started to darken up and turned it back on and it started to lighten again.

There has been some study in Canada that says it changes the PH of the syrup, I don't know exactly what that means in the quality of syrup.

To be continued I am sure

[mcmp]

Thanks 802;
Good info. Looks like a summer fab job is scheduled

Paul

[WF MASON]

This would be another thing I don't know a heck of alot about. I thought the selling concept of the bubbler was the niter never has a chance to build up on the pans, it stays sepended in the syrup and is carried out during drawoff.
But increase evaporation would be great to.

[maplehound]

I thought too that it would be fun to try and make one. Untill I talked to the so called experts ( ex- has been, spert- drip underpressue) They tell me that you must have a very good filter on the air intake. For the same reasons as 802 mentioned. They also told me that it took some engeniering to get it so the holes wouldn't sugar over. Then I heard about the Ph thing being a possible adulteration issue and the color versus the flavor issues. So I am not making one untill I get more finall desisions on what is happening with them.

[MaplePancakeMan]

802 you said about the increase in steam with sap only being 140 degrees, is that from the bubbles increasing the surface area of the water and increasing the evaporation, so the sap is cooled quicker than just letting it cool down normally?

[802maple]

In the increased evaporation angle, It helps wood fired evaporators do better because they are always boiling the whole length of the pan even though it is a fake boil.

The color verses flavor issue is only with sugarmakers that grade on color only, I have seen many a sugarmaker that believe color is the only thing to worry about. If it is light in color but I tastes like crap, it is crap, or if it is dark and it tastes like fancy it is dark. They both go together.

The steam comes from the increased aggitation. The air by the time it is injected into the syrup is warmed up just like your preheater does sap coming in. There is no way that the air is still cold by the time it hits the sap not going thru a small tube surrounded by 215 degree sap. This is the same technology that is used in the piggybacks and steamaways and the new Dallaire that increase your evaporation.

With no fire it probably would cool down faster just like I keep the blower on with a forced draft evaporator well after the fire is out to cool the pans.

[HanginAround]

I've never heard of bubbling in the syrup pan, but I know 2 guys that have them in their flue pans, and both swear by them. Increased evaperation rate, and lighter colour. I never heard any complaints about taste, seemed fine to me.