Sweetening the pan

[Danielb]

Got my first boil underway with my new flue pan and syrup pan.
I am just wondering how many gallons I will be looking at (roughly) before I am close to my first draw-off. My loans hold about 10 gallons at capacity while boiling.

Thanks for any insight. I know I will be a while, but where I should be boiling between 14-16 gph, I'm really not sure when things will be happening.

[fisheatingbagel]

Daniel,
What size is your pan? For a 2x4, 2x6 flue pan you're probably looking at 50 - 70 gallons before a drawoff. If you have a way to block flow between your flue and syrup pans, you can force a batch draw by blocking the the sap from the sap pan, and letting the syrup concentrate. You have to wait until your fire is down before doing this, and be prepared to let more sap in as needed.

[tcross]

do a quick search for "sweetening the pan" in the search engine. one of the members has done all the math in one of the threads where you can just plug in your evaporator info and get how many gallons it takes!

[Danielb]

Found Big-eddys info, his pan holds about the same, so I will be planning around 100 gallons or so by the sounds of it. That's about what I had expected

[Big_Eddy]

The math is under "ideal" conditions. It makes a big difference how deep you are running in your pans. The deeper you are, the more mixing takes places, so the more gradual the gradient. Consistent firing helps speed up the process as well.

If you don't want to do the math, then as a rule of thumb - I suggest it typically takes the first day of boiling (6-8 hours) to get to a sweetened state.