How much propane does it take?

[RobbieH]

Hi all. Hope everyone is having a great sugar season. This will be my last year using my homemade barrel stove evaporator. It just takes too long. I enjoy doing this, but next year it'll be time to boil faster. I was wondering if anyone reading this uses propane for smaller boils, and if so, roughly how much propane do you use?

I have an 18"x36" pan that I boil on. I only boil enough to make a couple of gallons of finished syrup each season. I was thinking about buying a couple of burners, setting my pan on them, and building a simple enclosure around everything to keep the wind out. I think doing this would be a faster way to boil down about 150gal of sap than my barrel stove. It would be a constant boil and I wouldn't have to keep adding wood. Of course, if this would cost a fortune in propane, I might consider a bigger wood fired evap instead.

Hoping to hear from those with experience in using propane fired evaporators. About how much propane do you think it would take to boil down 150gal of sap?

Thanks!

[Run Forest Run!]

Hey Robbie.

I have used propane for all of my seven seasons. I have previously used two turkey fryers and this year have added a 3 burner Denali camp stove to my equipment. I'll be able to handle some pretty good sap tsunamis if they ever show up!

I can say that, with very little variation, one 20 pound propane tank should yield you a half gallon of finished syrup. That's assuming that your sap contains somewhere around 2% sugar.

Hope that helps!

By the way, last year propane was around $9 per fill so a gallon of syrup cost me $18 in propane. I spent less than $60 for a full season of sugaring fun and ended up with over 3 gallons of syrup. It's not free like wood from the forest, but it's really easy and very convenient.

I use full size steam trays for boiling and one fits nicely over a turkey fryer. The Denali camp stove will handle three full sized steam trays at once.

[RobbieH]

Thanks for the reply, Karen. So you put your pans right on the propane burners? Also, what kind of boil rate do you normally get?

Thanks again.

[BSD]

a friend of mine runs a hobby RO and finishes with propane and he's at $9/gallon to make syrup. put the money into the hobby RO instead of boiling more hours.

[Run Forest Run!]

Thanks for the reply, Karen. So you put your pans right on the propane burners? Also, what kind of boil rate do you normally get?

Thanks again.

Robbie, I can boil off 2 gallons per hour, per steam tray. And yes, I put the steam trays right on the burners. This is the style of burner that I use.

https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.1000751079.html?eid=PS_GOOGLE_HD+%7C+E-Comm_E-Comm+%7C+Shopping+%7C+Outdoors_All+Outdoors_pla-355426686195&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2r_KypPT2QIV27jACh3gNQq9EAQYASAB EgIRf_D_BwE

I agree with BSD, that having an RO would certainly speed things up! I was able to kick start my sugar content a lot last year by skimming off the ice from the sap in my pails before adding it to the trays. Many days I was able to start off with sap with a sugar content closer to 6% that way.

Hope you have a great season. :D