Was NOT Prepared!

[OakFarm]

Total newb here with a hand-me down Leader Half Pint. Specs said 15-50 taps so I put 20...already have almost 200 gallons of sap since tapping on Sunday. I am a solo operator and definitely wasn’t prepard for handiling 200 gallons in 3 days! Anyone else having that ‘problem’?

[OakFarm]

I notice I get more steam if I crack the front of the arch about an inch or so. Is this advisable?

[BSD]

I notice I get more steam if I crack the front of the arch about an inch or so. Is this advisable?this is an indication your arch is starving for air. more air= more fire. Put a blower on it, if you don't have one already.

if you can't keep up with the sap either pull a few taps or start building a hobby size RO. if you're inundated with sap you're not going to have any fun.

[maple flats]

Give it as much air as you can and add new wood every 7 or 8 minutes. Split the wood to wrist size, have dry wood and only fill the firebox to about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Use a poker to help keep the grates from plugging with ash and coals. Only have the sap 1" deep and then enjoy making syrup. At best you will get between 5-6 gal/hour evaporation, so be prepared to take about 35-40 hours to off that much sap to make syrup.
If you have 2% sugar in your sap it will take about 44 gal to make 1 gal of syrup, so you need to boil away 43 gal of water. Higher sugar takes less time and vise versa.

[OakFarm]

Thank you guys sooo much! My grate is certainly plugged. I’ve only bee now keeping about 1/2” of sap in the pan. I’ve opened up the door completely and am going to poke it around and start removing the coals and ash and rebuild fire as you’ve suggested. Will now keep 1” depth of sap and hopefully that will help slow things down for me enough to catch up.

Also, it possible to draw off (when it’s ready), let cool, and reheat at a later date and filter at that time? I haven’t devised a good cone filter holder just yet and was going to modify a tomato plant cage and filter into a kettle.

[Road's End]

Nothing at all wrong with reheating later to bottle. If you have some clamps to hold at least some prefilters on a pot when you pour you can catch all of the big junk and save a little filter life later on when you bottle.

[BCPP]

Thank you guys sooo much! My grate is certainly plugged. I’ve only bee now keeping about 1/2” of sap in the pan. I’ve opened up the door completely and am going to poke it around and start removing the coals and ash and rebuild fire as you’ve suggested. Will now keep 1” depth of sap and hopefully that will help slow things down for me enough to catch up.

Also, it possible to draw off (when it’s ready), let cool, and reheat at a later date and filter at that time? I haven’t devised a good cone filter holder just yet and was going to modify a tomato plant cage and filter into a kettle.
What we use for the cone filter is a 5 gal plastic bucket with a small hole in bottom at one edge. Cone filter fits perfectly on bucket and we tie the tabs with a rope around the rim to hold in place. Of course you need to have a platform that you can sit the bucket on so that the edge with the hole overhangs a receiving container below ( we use 3 gal pe containers).

Two other suggestions. Place several disposable Orion filters inside the cone filter. Then you can peel out the inner most one when flow slows, revealing fresh filter surface and restoring your filter rate. Also, if you stick a piece of plastic pipe, the height of the bucket, under the centre of the felt cone so that it inverts it (looks like a volcanoe) then you greatly increase the filter surface area that's in contact with the syrop and thus speed everything up.

[maple flats]

Keep the draft door fully open but not the fill door, The boil slows when the door is open to add wood, thus it will also be slower if open for any other reason. find a blower if you need to boil faster, to go in the draft door.

[wnybassman]

I am looking forward to not being prepared.

[northwood]

200 gal. from 20 taps in 3 days. Those are great producing Maples. This is a problem many sap addict wish for. Enjoy the run, when it's over and you're all caught up, you'll hope for another sap tsunami.:lol:

[OakFarm]

It was probably closer 120-150 gallons. I ran out of clean 15 gallon barrels and had to stop gathering. I have 2 large maples, both would take 3 people joining hands to wrap around them, 3.5-4 ft. diameter, with 3 taps each. I have the poly bags on the spiles, but I only have the old style (flat tab on the top). If the bags get too full, they'll rip themselves out so now I keep them less than half full.

Flow has slowed down a little today. And still working on dialing in the fire/draft/sap feed rate. Definitely more fun when I'm not bouncing around like I'm in a pinball machine!

Thanks again to all!

[OakFarm]

Ok, so I believe I have this rig dialed in at approx. 4 gals/hr. Then I notice a rust hole about the size of a baseball in the pipe that connects the back of the arch to my stack.

Could this be affecting my heating capacity?

[ecolbeck]

Hole in stack = reduction in draft = reduction in heating potential. Definitely worth fixing.