Still another oil barrel arch. :)

[For_the_kids]

I finally got around to getting this built. The main reason for posting is because I was very happy to find so many good ideas on here that I felt obligated to post mine just incase it helps someone else out. Everything is complete except for the paint and filling the back of the ramp with 4-1/2 inches of sand. I may use 2 inches of sand and then put firebrick on top of that if anyone feels it is needed. I have tons of pictures of this build, but I took the 14 that best describe the build without going into too much detail. If anyone is interested in seeing any other parts of this build I can see what I have for other photos or I can take more too. The main pan is 2x4 and the preheat pan is a steam table pan. If the preheater pan doesnt heat well enough I will add a copper line around my stove pipe leading into it. I have a small pump that pumps my sap into the steam table pan so I would just pump through the copper line and then put a tee at the end so if I shut off the flow to the preheater pan it will just recirulate back to the tank, this way the line always has flow. I'll know more once the sap starts flowing. ;) I'll post the next photos in the following posts. Thanks again for all the great info on here and I hope this helps someone out.

[For_the_kids]

Here are the next 5 pictures

[For_the_kids]

And the last 4 photos here

[Danielb]

I love it. Awesome design, I really like the way you did your stack, and allowing room for a steam pan to sit up there. Stove glass in the door? I used to work for a glass company, and wish I still had the access to put a piece of neoceram in my door to watch the inferno...

[For_the_kids]

Yes it is stove glass. I picked up two pieces of it on ebay for $25. I thought it was worth it to see the fire cooking. :)

[Johnny Yooper]

Very nice build. I did a similar build about 6 years ago with one of those 275 gal. oil tanks. I have been using the copper coil wrapped around stovepipe preheater as well......I pump 40F sap in and it exits the other end around 180F and goes into the smaller of two pans.

[Cjadamec]

That's a nice oil tank evaporator. I like that shelf too. I might try to copy that next year to add one of my old steam table pans back into the mix.

On the copper coil heater make plans so that you can flush it with fresh water and let it run dry when needed. I use sharkbite style fittings on the end of my preheater so I can remove the valves as needed to protect them from the heat.

You want to avoid recirculating preheated sap back to your storage barrel that you feed the evaporator with. You want to keep that tank cold to keep the raw sap from spoiling.

I would place the tee on the outlet of the pump and before the preheater that way you can re-circ the cold sap back to the tank and use a valve on the tee to control the flow into the preheater to match evaporation rate. If you add a stack coil you will want a valve on the outlet of the coil to create backpressure in the coil and keep sap from flashing to steam in the coil. I can dig up some pictures of how I have mine setup if you are interested.

[For_the_kids]

Cjadamec, thanks for all the info about the pre heating. If you have time and wouldn't mind posting some pics of your pre-heater I would appreciate it. How many wraps and what size copper do you use? Thanks

[Cjadamec]

I will be boiling tonight to finish up my pan before it freezes I will snap a few pics then.

I have 3/8" copper refrigeration tubing wrapped around the stack. Not sure how many wraps exactly but there is about 40 feet worth of tubing in my preheater. That's on an 8" stack. It can easily keep up with the 13gph my pan needs putting out sap at or near boiling.

[woodguyrob]

I will be boiling tonight to finish up my pan before it freezes I will snap a few pics then.

I have 3/8" copper refrigeration tubing wrapped around the stack. Not sure how many wraps exactly but there is about 40 feet worth of tubing in my preheater. That's on an 8" stack. It can easily keep up with the 13gph my pan needs putting out sap at or near boiling.

Is your tubing exposed or insulated and covered?

[Cjadamec]

Is your tubing exposed or insulated and covered?

Funny you should ask that. I boil outside in the wind so I covered my coil in a leftover piece of 1" thick ceramic wool insulation. The outside is wrapped in aluminum foil tape to keep the fibers contained. It's held up surprisingly well.

You can see in the photo I have a wye fitting on the discharge of the pump. One side goes to the coil the other passes through a valve and back to the barrel. On the top of the coil is another valve. By adjusting both valves I can keep the coil pressurised at the same time controlling the flow rate into the pan.

It takes a little bit of babysitting to keep an eye on your flow rate but I've learned to judge how's it's doing by the sound of the pump. I think this weekend I'm going to plumb in a pressure gauge on the pump outlet to make it easy to set the valves.

[woodguyrob]

Nice set up. 13 GPH is up there. I'm boiling tomorrow outside for the first time using a similar preheater only using gravity. A 5 gallon bucket on a ladder. I have about 23 ft. (i think) of similar size copper tubing. Based on another build I saw here in MT I put a second sleeve over the stack before the copper tubing ...to prevent scorching the lines. Like you, ceramic blanket and then covered with sheet metal. We'll see how she does.


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[Cjadamec]

You should get the sap plenty warm with that setup. The insulation blanket makes a huge difference in the temperature coming out of your preheater.

Remember in these coil coil style pre heaters pressure is your friend. It prevents vapor locking and scorching.

[woodguyrob]

Good to know. I'll make sure there's plenty of height and sap in the bucket.

[For_the_kids]

Cjadamec, I see your sap enters the bottom of the loop and sprials up the chimney, is there reason for this? In my mind, I planned to have the sap enter the top and then spiral down. As long as its under pressure from the pump mayby it doesn't matter but I'm curious if you have a good reason, or if thats just the way you did it? Also, from your photo, it looks like I can see the remainder of supper being made on a cast iron skillet. I wondered if I might be able to remove my warming pan and place a cast iron griddle there to keep it fun for the kids while they help.

[For_the_kids]

One more question, my stack is a 7-in chimney, should I leave it as 7-in or reduce it down to 6-in for this rig?

[Cjadamec]

So my thinking to pumping into the bottom of the coil is to avoid fighting any air bubbles in the copper tube. The pump pushes any air right up and out the top. When operating the coil at low flow rates I feel like it's better to work with any air/steam that might be in the tube rather than fight against it.

Never tried plumbing it from the top down so the above is all just theory on my part but I know it works well as plumbed.

I would stay 7" stack. I'm not sure what the exact math is for figuring out what size stack you need. I went with an 8" stack because I didn't want any stack restrictions for the amount of heat I was aiming to make. Again I haven't tried anything else on my rig so I can't really compare it to anything else.

You have a good eye for cast iron skillets. I was pressed for time to both boil and make dinner for the family. I had the bright idea to use the open space behind my pan to do both things at the same time without running in and out of the house. with the cast iron pan it worked great and saved a lot of walking.

[For_the_kids]

So just to update on my oil barrel arch I built. Today was my first full day boil with it. I averaged 18 GPH. I used all dry pine firing every 6:45. I fed the 2x4 pan with sap that was heated to 155 degrees. I am stoked with it's performance. Pun intended. There are a few changes I want to make to help speed it up some yet but I think I'm pretty much maxed out. I started with 196 gallons sap and stopped with 7 gallons sweet. I'll finish on propane after it settles out for a week or so.

[Mead Maple]

That is fantastic. 33 degree sap slows things a bit haha!


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