Building a new evaporator

[Swell93]

Hi there, I’m new at this game and I apologize in advance if this has already been covered, but I haven’t seen it yet. I’m just wrapping up my 2nd year. This year we tapped 20 trees and boiled it off using various methods to see which one I preferred. Next year I’d like to tap 30-40 trees and need to upgrade my evaporator.
My plan is to build a wood fire evaporator that will fit a 16x40 stainless steel pan. I have a propane burner that has 3 30,000 btu burners. I’d like to be able to use the pan on both.
My question is, will the 3 burner stove produce enough heat to be efficient, or should I just stick to the wood fire evaporator.
I like the convenience of the propane evaporator and was thinking of using it for smaller batches.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks

[NhShaun]

I guess it depends if you have a plentyfull amount of firewood on hand. I personally would much rather burn wood than propane. But propane can certainly be more convenient at times, with a cost.

[mol1jb]

I agree. For smaller runs just boil shorter or collect for another day then boil. I do like your idea of a longer pan as it will be more efficient than a 2x3 pan.

[Zucker Lager]

I guess it depends if you have a plentyfull amount of firewood on hand. I personally would much rather burn wood than propane. But propane can certainly be more convenient at times, with a cost.

I've worked on larger boilers that had "dual fuel" capabilities. You could switch from gas to oil just by inserting the oil nozzle, they worked great both ways. So why couldn't you have a regular wood fire box but add some hardware so that you could just slide in a rack holding propane burners? A little forward planning and you could add that gas option anytime later. Jay

[Haynes Forest Products]

You can there are many arches that have a door with the oil gun shooting into it. My first real set of pans was wood fired and we converted when oil was cheaper than wood. pulled the door bolted a plate on with the gun in it. Didn't know any better at the time so we just winged it and it worked great for 8 years.