Continuous Flow ideas

[erob]

Hi everyone

I recently purchased two food grade 55 gallon barrels with lids for my sugar shack. One is going to be used for collecting and the other for sap storage in the shack. My evaporator is set up with a warming tray and I would like to get continuous flow going so I can be more efficient. I don't really have the height to do gravity feed so I'm looking for other ideas or options. Let me know what you have for a set up.

[ecolbeck]

Clarifying question:

Continuous flow is usually used to reference an evaporator pan design where sap flows in at one spot and travels a serpentine route through a series of dividers and emerges as finished syrup at the other end. Is this what you are asking about?

[erob]

Yes my pan has continuous flow I just want to have sap flowing at all times from my bulk storage. Just looking for some input or ideas

[bigbeef]

if you had some height, build a stand (if the barrel stands vertical) with 4x4's & 2x6's to hold the barrel with sap in the shack. Then put in a bulkhead fitting, valve, whatever length of pvc or copper pipe to over your warming tray & control the flow with the valve. Barrels are only like, 34 inches tall? If you put the barrel at a 45° angle then the height would only be half of that, so top of the barrel would sit ~ 17 inches above the top of your warming tray.

But if you truly can't put the barrel up off the ground at all, my only idea would be a 12V bilge pump sitting in the barrel. Or any other small pump would work, I think, if you don't want a pump sitting in the sap. Then either

1. put a needle valve on the outlet line to control the flow

or

2. put a "T" on the outlet line, a needle valve on one side to control the flow going into the warming tray, and the other side returns the excess to the sap barrel.

[erob]

Ok thanks a lot. I assume I hook the bilge pump up to a standard 12v battery ?

[Big_Eddy]

I have yet to find a bilge pump that is NSF rated for potable water use. I would suggest an RV water pump instead.

My criteria for sap use is "the lick test". If you wouldn't lick it, don't use it for sap.

[Gord]

My criteria for sap use is "the lick test". If you wouldn't lick it, don't use it for sap.

These are the things I remember!! Great sayings. I'll add that saying to another one I read on here. (Treat your sap like milk) That's excellent advice. Another I remember to do is (Split your wood to the size of your wrist) Now I can add (The lick test)

Perfect!

[Shaggy acres]

Lick test! Good advice for life in general! LOL! Harbor freight has some small fountain pumps that would be perfect for this if you have 110 at your sugar shack. Just dont let it freeze. They use a small PVC impeller and should be just fine for sap.

[thomashansen871]

what i have setup this year, will be an old coffee urn, i will be using that to preheat my concentrate, i will have a pump, like this one "bayite 12V DC Fresh Water Pump" as well as "5pcs Mini Water Filter Float Ball Valve" so with the floats installed, when the level hits X, the pump will shut off, as soon as it drops, the pump kicks back in. it should be a decent setup, you could just install a 5 or 6 gallon bucket instead of the coffee urn that i am using. you could also get a larger version of the pump, i have 2 sizes, one is for transferring permeate to clean my pans and filters, and the other is for transferring concentrate into the pans.