wisnoskij
03-31-2019, 04:05 PM
Hello all,
First I want to lead off with a big thank you to everyone on this forum, it has been an unequaled resource for me.
Where I am now.
I have a 6 steam pan evaporator. I still have to work on extending the exhaust system, adding a preheating system, attaching the insulation better, and siphons would save me a lot of work. But it works amazing, the hardest part in using it is to trying to keep the pans from boiling over.
The sides angle in somewhat to protect the sides of the pans, between the pans is covered with T posts. And the Exhaust box is a 8"-20" 3 foot pyramid.
19899
The one issue I had with it is it takes longer to get to full bore than I would of expected. I think it had to be like 3-4 hours before it was at peak performance, for example, I think it was about 3 hours before the back pan was the hottest pan. An extended exhaust should help somewhat, but I had it facing into the wind on both boiling days to help with any exhaust pull weakness.
But my biggest question right now is expanding it. I have the opportunity to get a old milking tank cheap. This would quite naturally become a 3'-6' pan, with at least a few dividers to make one of those Z flow pans (the ones where the sap flows to the front on the right, back to the back down the middle, then up to the front again on the left).
This brings up two main design questions.
1. I have never seen a setup with a pan that was not really movable. You take the pan off the fire to finish of the batch, but this pan might be a little big for that. At the very least I would need to do quite a bit of welding and design work to make a place to pull it off to. Do the real professionals have systems setup to cool pans where they lay? or are they always designed to be taken off the fire part of the evaporator?
2. How far apart to put support walls? I really want the underside of the pan to be flat to encourage a good flow of exhaust, but I can do support/compartment walls on the inside. But the question is, is 2 walls longways plenty of support? Do I want to add some short ways walls, or just even more longways walls? Just common sense I am thinking it might make sense to do something like (diagram below).
19900
Or are thinner pans just way better? Will the firebox and exhaust be just so wide as to be unwieldy and hard to build?
When Leader says 3x8 or 3x10 arch, do they mean 3' by 8 or 10' arch? I just watched one video of one of their arches and it looked like the pan stayed on the arch, and I am pretty sure I saw wood ash, but no word on how they cooled off the pan.
The compartment walls should only need to be like 3-4 inches tall, so I should have enough extra SS.
But maybe that will lead to a bunch of areas where the sap does not flow forwards and just stays still? So maybe I would actually want thinner compartments, like four 9" ones, or five 7.xx" ones?
I have seen very long evaporators. But, my experience with this 6' one is that I think they must take a LONG time to come fully up to temp. What is your experience with this? I am just trying to think of what would be the most efficient and easy to use setup. Running two evaporators is probably not ideal, but how best to combine them?
1. Again, is such a big setup only good if you are evaporating 24/7 and don't have to worry so much about warm-up time?
2. Can I change widths so dramatically in a single evaporator?
OK, I had the craziest design idea. Since I not only need to expand the draw area, but also am worried about it being slow to heat up; What about a double firebox evaporator? Where I basically just stick this finished evaporator on the front of a second evaporator. The 8" draw of the first one feeds into the second firebox, which adds in additional air, heat, and fire, to become a 12" draw, exiting out a 12" stack*?
* If I am reading this Leader manual right, then a 12" stack should be just about right for about the equivalent of 3'x9.x' of pan space.
Misc question. This should probably be its own post, but should I be doing anything fancy with air intake(s). I just assumed I wanted an intake about equal to my exhaust under my fire at the front??? But maybe I want a little intake half way down my evaporator to induce some reburn, but I imagine it does not get hot enough with all the boiling water?
First I want to lead off with a big thank you to everyone on this forum, it has been an unequaled resource for me.
Where I am now.
I have a 6 steam pan evaporator. I still have to work on extending the exhaust system, adding a preheating system, attaching the insulation better, and siphons would save me a lot of work. But it works amazing, the hardest part in using it is to trying to keep the pans from boiling over.
The sides angle in somewhat to protect the sides of the pans, between the pans is covered with T posts. And the Exhaust box is a 8"-20" 3 foot pyramid.
19899
The one issue I had with it is it takes longer to get to full bore than I would of expected. I think it had to be like 3-4 hours before it was at peak performance, for example, I think it was about 3 hours before the back pan was the hottest pan. An extended exhaust should help somewhat, but I had it facing into the wind on both boiling days to help with any exhaust pull weakness.
But my biggest question right now is expanding it. I have the opportunity to get a old milking tank cheap. This would quite naturally become a 3'-6' pan, with at least a few dividers to make one of those Z flow pans (the ones where the sap flows to the front on the right, back to the back down the middle, then up to the front again on the left).
This brings up two main design questions.
1. I have never seen a setup with a pan that was not really movable. You take the pan off the fire to finish of the batch, but this pan might be a little big for that. At the very least I would need to do quite a bit of welding and design work to make a place to pull it off to. Do the real professionals have systems setup to cool pans where they lay? or are they always designed to be taken off the fire part of the evaporator?
2. How far apart to put support walls? I really want the underside of the pan to be flat to encourage a good flow of exhaust, but I can do support/compartment walls on the inside. But the question is, is 2 walls longways plenty of support? Do I want to add some short ways walls, or just even more longways walls? Just common sense I am thinking it might make sense to do something like (diagram below).
19900
Or are thinner pans just way better? Will the firebox and exhaust be just so wide as to be unwieldy and hard to build?
When Leader says 3x8 or 3x10 arch, do they mean 3' by 8 or 10' arch? I just watched one video of one of their arches and it looked like the pan stayed on the arch, and I am pretty sure I saw wood ash, but no word on how they cooled off the pan.
The compartment walls should only need to be like 3-4 inches tall, so I should have enough extra SS.
But maybe that will lead to a bunch of areas where the sap does not flow forwards and just stays still? So maybe I would actually want thinner compartments, like four 9" ones, or five 7.xx" ones?
I have seen very long evaporators. But, my experience with this 6' one is that I think they must take a LONG time to come fully up to temp. What is your experience with this? I am just trying to think of what would be the most efficient and easy to use setup. Running two evaporators is probably not ideal, but how best to combine them?
1. Again, is such a big setup only good if you are evaporating 24/7 and don't have to worry so much about warm-up time?
2. Can I change widths so dramatically in a single evaporator?
OK, I had the craziest design idea. Since I not only need to expand the draw area, but also am worried about it being slow to heat up; What about a double firebox evaporator? Where I basically just stick this finished evaporator on the front of a second evaporator. The 8" draw of the first one feeds into the second firebox, which adds in additional air, heat, and fire, to become a 12" draw, exiting out a 12" stack*?
* If I am reading this Leader manual right, then a 12" stack should be just about right for about the equivalent of 3'x9.x' of pan space.
Misc question. This should probably be its own post, but should I be doing anything fancy with air intake(s). I just assumed I wanted an intake about equal to my exhaust under my fire at the front??? But maybe I want a little intake half way down my evaporator to induce some reburn, but I imagine it does not get hot enough with all the boiling water?