First use of water jacketed filter/bottler

[mspina14]

I used my new water jacketed filter/bottler for the first time yesterday.

It's located to the right of the evaporator in the photos below:

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It worked great! We were able to draw-off directly from the syrup pan on the evaporator into the unit. It has a flat filter tray. We used one felt filter and 3 pre-filters. The filtered syrup drips into a tank that is enclosed in a larger tank. The gap between the two tanks holds water.

We heat the unit with a turkey fryer propane burner. The water heats evenly and keeps the syrup evenly heated (no hot spots).

We just kept on drawing off from the evaporator into the filter/bottler. At the end of the night, we made sure the syrup was heated to 180 degrees and then we bottled directly into glass:

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Syrup came out crystal clear.

I purchased the filter/bottler from Whity, a fellow Mapletrader sugar maker.

Thanks Steve!

Mark

[Urban Sugarmaker]

Nice setup. How do you like the Mason with the flue pan?

[mspina14]

Nice setup. How do you like the Mason with the flue pan?

This is my first season, but so far I love it.

Flue pan boils like crazy. I rough estimate I get about 15 gph.

But I'm still learning how to use it. It's my first continuous flow evaporator and I'm still learning how to manage the gradient.

But all in all, I'm very pleased.

Mark

[Sugarmaker]

Very nice!
regards,
Chris

[Woodsrover]

Nice!

Tell me more about your pans! I run a 4' Mason and would love a set of pans like that.

[maple flats]

To manage the gradient, just keep adding sap at a rate necessary to maintain lavel and draw as slow as needed to try to get some sort of an almost continuous draw as possible. That part is the hard part. But I did it somewhat on a 2x3 and then much easily on a 2x6 then a 3x8. If you draw too fast, you get mixing when you close the draw valve. Going slow minimizes the mixing.

[mspina14]

Nice!

Tell me more about your pans! I run a 4' Mason and would love a set of pans like that.

I bought both the arch and pans new from Bill Mason in New Hampshire.

I ordered them in March, 2016, and picked them up in August, 2016.

Bill made both the arch and the pans. The raised flue pan is 24"X30" and the syrup pan is 24"X18 inches.

Bill is a great guy. I picked the evaporator up in New Hampshire. He spent a good deal of time with me showing me how it worked and all the details.

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Mark

[whity]

Thanks Mark. Glad you like the canner. We have been boiling on our new 2X8 drop tube Mason also. Took about 1 day to figure out our level that works well. We made 16 gallons last week. This thing boils sap like no one business. 157641576515766

[mspina14]

Sweet!

That evaporator is a monster!

I'm not surprised it works so well.

Thanks again Steve.


Mark