Questions about small homemade evap pan

[Dennis H.]

Howdy all, I am just getting started into this maple thing and have a few questions about a small homemade evaporater that I am planning on building.

The plan is to use a 55gal drum with a 20"x34"x6" deep pan on top, I found a local guy who will make me a pan out of 18ga SS for about $120, Is 18ga to heavy? would 20 or 22ga be better?

Since I will only be able to boil once or twice during the week and also on weekends, would I benefit from having a divided plan? And how does the syrup get from one section to the other? I haven't found any pics that show close ups of the dividers. Are there some sort of holes in them to allow the sap to flow through? Or would I be better off dividing the pan with a small front area for syrup and a larger rear area for adding sap? Or no dividers at all?

And once I get everything built and ready to fire what depth should I aim to keep the sap at? If my calculations are correct the pan would hold a little over 8 1/2 gals at 3" depth.

Sorry for so many questions at once, but thanks for any info anyone can give me.

Oh by the way, I am starting off with about 15 Red maples. If everything works out this year I might expand a little and add a few sugar maples that are located on my dads land.

Thanks again,
Dennis

[The Sappy Steamer]

I started with pans like you want to make. Mine were 20 ga. and worked real well. The shallower you run your sap the faster it will boil. The dividers are nice because they have gates that allow you to keep your syrup side separate from the raw sap so you're not just boiling it all down for hours which will make it a darker grade of syrup. It's nice if you can set up a small pan, or better yet, a small preheater pan so you can add your cold sap slowly so as not to reduce your boiling rate down by dumping alot of cold sap in all at once. If you're only going to have fifteen taps you will probably just boil it all as a batch anyways. But don't count on staying with fifteen, plan on alot more. I was going to tap just a dozen or so and I'm up to two hundred and fifty or so. Good luck with your project. Dan

[Ahnohta]

We started w/ 18 ga welded ss pan, thot the thicker ga would not cool down as easy in winds, but wished we went thinner ga. We hold pan up on blocks, heat w/ wood and then chimney at end Our pan is 18" x 60" x 6". We started w/ less then a doz taps and now up to approx 60. Next spring will move from blocks to a 265 oil drum converted. Someday in future once we set up a shed, we will go w/ a professional built hobby evaporator approx 2x8 w/ dividers etc. I would not worry about a divided pan at this time. We batch boil all day and have great tasting syrup. We finish on a turkey fryer, filter well w/ orlien and prefilters, then bottle.

Your price of $120 for pan is VERY reasonable.

Keep sap level at 1" or more. Do not walk away if it is at 1". Keep watching with all three eyes. As sappy steamer sez "the shallower you run your sap the faster the boil." memorize this and remeber to keep three eyes on it.

Pay extra and have welder put on 3/4 " nipple and valve at end or side end of unit.

You might as well plan on tapping your dads trees, we all go with more taps, and then some more, then even more. You will get the hang of it real quick.

[Fred Henderson]

I started with 2 flat pans off a seving line and 15 taps. All set up outside on cement blocks. Now I have a 3x8 drop flue 400 taps and I am inside in a 20 x32 sugar house. I have electricity and hot and cold running water.

[Russell Lampron]

Dennis having your pan made of thinner stainless will allow better heat transfer to your boiling sap. Adding dividers to the pan will allow you to build up a gradient where the sweeter sap can concentrate at the draw off. The idea of making a smaller front section will work good for this. The dividers should have a cutout at one end for sap to pass through to the next section of the pan. If you put in 3 dividers the cutouts should be opposite each other so that the sap zig zags through the pan on its way to the draw off. Plan on doing more than the 15 taps. Having too much sap to boil is not as bad as not having enough.

I started with a wash tub on a concrete block arch when I was in high school. I had 16 taps that year and made a gallon of the darkest syrup I had ever seen. I had to pull my taps early that year because I gathered with a snowmobile and had to stop when the snow melted. Many years later I tried it again with a roasting pan on a gas grille. That year I had 28 taps and dumped more sap than I boiled because I couldn't boil it fast enough. The following year I bought a 2x6 evaporator, built a sugar house and had 300 taps. Now I have about 550 taps and have added an RO machine to my set up. Like others have said, once you get started you will catch on real fast and will want more taps. The mixture of red maple and sugar maple sap seems to make some really nice tasting syrup too.

Russ

[Fred Henderson]

Also remember that there are just 2 seasons. Making syrup season and getting ready to make syrup. Once you are bitten by that little maple bug its nothing but hard work after that, but is must be fun and rewarding or most of us wouldn't continue to do it.

[danno]

10 taps in 20 gallon sauce pan on cinderblocks, cooking outdoors. Up to 3 sauce pans by the end of the first season. Collected with 20 gallon poly containers on top of kids palstic sled - even after snow melted.

5 years later, 300 taps, vacumm, 30x8 and shopping for a 3x12 so I can increase my taps for this spring.

Does anybody ever get smaller?:)

[Dennis H.]

Thanks for all the info.
What I might try and do is have the pan made out of lighter gauge SS, probably 20ga. That is a great idea to put a drain valve on the one side to drain out the syrup or semi complete syrup to finish on a seperate stove.

I think I will stick with one big flat pan for this year and maybe next yr have the dividers added. I guess it won't be a problem adding them down the road, right?

If I do decide to go the divider route if I understand it correctly I could divide the pan front to back with say a front area of 20x8 and a rear area of 20x26 and further divide the back part into 3 sections that go fore and aft with a hole, I am assuming near the bottom of the pan, in one end of each divider so that it would look like a maze? Now would I want a hole that leads into the front part or would it be better to laddle out of the rear to the front?

Now I also understand that the shallower I keep the sap the faster I can boil off water but the more of a chance to burn it. With a divided pan like I mentioned above with no hole from rear to front I could keep the back part around 1" deep, and keep my third eye on it, and keep the front pan around 2" and have a less chance of burning the syrup. Does this sound right?

Dennis

[Dennis H.]

I already have seen that there is only two seasons. Besides working out my evaporator pan I have been going to local bakerys to get buckets that icing came in to use for collecting sap, also saving gal milk jugs.
I cut down a few dead oaks and split them the other day so I should have enough wood to boil.
I got 2 32gal trash cans to hold sap till I am ready to boil, saving 2 liter bottles to freeze water so I can toss them in trash cans to keep the sap cold so it won't spoil.
Besides all that I still have to order spouts, filters, thermometer, hydrometer and hydromemter cup, and a few small containers to put syrup in to give to family. I have no idea how much I am going to have in the end though.

So I do see that making maple syrup can be a year-round thing.

[fred]

only get smaller by ice storms or loggers

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Your local guy may not want to work with anything lighter than 18 gauge. If so, it will work fine and once you get a hot fire, it won't matter. I think the first 2x3 pan that I made syrup on for several years was welded stainless 16 or 18 gauge and worked great. The lighter the gauge, the harder it is to work with and local people will refuse to work with lighter stuff a lot of the time.

[Russell Lampron]

Dennis,

If you can get a look at the pan set up on a Leader Half Pint evaporator that is what you want to try to imitate. The rear section is where the raw sap would go and then you would need to designate one side on the front for a draw off and put a divider in that section. Put a cutout in the divider that separates the front and back section opposite the side where the draw off is. Then one more divider with a cutout at the front of the pan will do it. The sap would flow from the back section into the front on say the right side. It would flow to the front of the pan and into the left side of the pan where you would have the draw off valve located near the rear of that section. As the hot sap concentrates it will be forced into the draw off side. Setting up a preheater pan like the Half Pint has will help increase your gallons per hour.

Russ

[ibby458]

One thing to think about is having your flat pan built like the front pan of an evaporator. Down the road, you could add a flue pan to what you already have and be on your way.

When I was boiling on a flat pan with an oil drum arch, I suspended a steam table pan over the back of the boiling pan to preheat the sap. (Hang it at a slight tilt, so condensation drips out of the boiling pan.) I also set several SS pails of sap on cement blocks tight to the arch. That sap would be almost boiling BEFORE I dumped it into the "preheater".

[Dennis H.]

Thanks for the info, I finally got to get a look at the 1/2 pint evaporater by leader.
That looks simple to make with only 2 dividers. Now I do see that the 1/2 pint is 24x36. But I guess that size might be a little big for a 55 gal drum. I have to think that any part of the pan hanging out of the fire is not good? I think that it would be better to size the pan to the fire box(drum).

I did get to look through alot old posts and I found some pics that sort of showed a pan and its dividers. It looks like the bottom corner of the the divider was cut at a 45 deg angle, am I seeing that correctly?

[WF MASON]

The divider can be notched out or cut at an angle , the sap doesn't care and it will work the same. Depending on how the pan is made if the dividers are 'drop in', an 18ga. pan would be easyer to assemble and you could scorch it number of times without warping. If your well seasoned at sugaring and scorching isn't an issue , go with 20 ga., if you drink Mt. Dew and live life on the edge , go with the 22 gauge.

[Dennis H.]

I never thought about removeable dividers, thats a cool idea, that is what you mean by 'Drop in' right?
With removeable dividers I could do batch boiling and then I could add the dividers and boil and take out syrup continuesly.

I also never thought about burning a batch and warping the pan.

So maybe 18ga SS might be better for me since I am just starting out and it would be a little more forgiving for my limited knowledge and skills at boiling down sap. I do like the idea of removeable dividers though.

[Pete33Vt]

Dennis, not to say anyone is wrong but I think what WF means is that the dividers are made to drop in and be welded to the pan. compaired to a pan that the dividers are made or fromed from the same picie of steel. What the dividers are used for is to keep your sap seperated while its boiling down.Since the more you boil the higher your sugar content becomes and will actually be moved or pushed around your pan by the sap with lower content. To better explain it from the point your sap comes into the front pan, say at 3% sugar as its being boiled the water come out and your sugar content goes up. which pushes your syrup towards your draw off point. If your diveders are not welded in you are doing the same as makeing a batch of syrup cause the different sugar contents just keep mixing.

[Dennis H.]

Now I understand 'drop in'.

I was wondering if it would work not being welded in but I also thought that being able to take them out would be a cool idea also.

I now do understand about the mouse maze of dividers and how there are cut out on opposite ends of each divider to allow the sap or syrup to snake around the pan to the draw off.

I guess now all I have to do is get back in touch with the guy I talked to about making the pan and finding out how much more it would cast to add a few dividers. It probably will cost me in labor than SS. Just my guess.

I am still not 100% sure if i want to add dividers this year or wait till next year.

Heres another question when I looked at the Leader 1/2 pint pan I noticed that there is a lip around the top of the pan. I think this is to add strength to the pan right? It is probably made out of 20-22ga SS right.
Now if I make my pan out 18ga SS would I still need that lip, or because of the thickness of SS I could do away with it?

So many things to think about.

[TapME]

The only thing left is yo make some syrup and taste it and you will have the maple bug. That said I used a 20x30 english tin pan on a 55 gal drum for 2 years with no dividers and a draw off and it made some of the best tasting syrup we have ever had. It at times was a little dark but that was the built up maple taste in it. My barrel had no fire brick in it and a sheet metal door on hinges and a 6" stack. I put a base of sand down on the bottom of the barrel to make the fire on so it would not burn through the bottom of the barrel and also to get the flames closer to the bottom of the pan. My son and I had a wonderful time that year (made 3gal) and have grown steady since. You will be amazed at how fast you can go through the sap with a good hot fire on 1.5" of sap. Hope you have a great time preparing and making syrup. TapME

[Ahnohta]

Ours is 18 ga SS w/ NO lip.

we did puyt two 1/2 " ss bars across the top (side to side) at 1/3 mark and 2/3 mark to help lift unit up off of fire

you do not need dividers yet, and your syrup will taste great

[danno]

I've got a homemade 30x30 stainless syrup pan with dividers on my 30"x8' evap. No lip and does not need one.