Intensofire

[n8hutch]

Hey ya'll, Taking a Hard look at a New Intensofire, anybody Running one? Looking for pros & cons? Firing rates? Would you buy another? Its a big investment just Looking for some input, definitely sticking with a wood fired rig but I'd like to get more efficient.

[maple flats]

Maybe look into adding high pressure air over fire (AOF) on your current rig. When I added it to mine, my refueling went from 7 minutes to 9 minutes and my evaporation climbed by 16%. Check this out: https://mapleresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/combeffic.pdf
What size is you arch? You will notice that the blower size goes by arch width only, not length.
I however have no idea what my pressure nor CFM are. My high pressure blower is over 100 yrs old and is belt driven. It is a paddle blower, meaning it throws the air out (with high pressure) while a squirrel cage blower flings the air (with less pressure). AOF can be done at less cost, many are using bounce house blowers. Likely shorter life blowers, but they give good pressure. When you find the blower in that link, go to Grainger's site and check out the pressure and CFM, then compare it to various bounce house blowers. The pressure is far more important than the CFM, it's the pressure that creates the turbulence in the firebox, burning much more of the wood gasses before they go up the stack.

[sugartree310]

I am in my 13th season on a 3 x 10 intensofire . I love it we make over 20 gallons an hour most of the time , I do concentrate to 17-18% . We run in regasification mode most of the time lots of air over the top and very little to the grates . We fire on an average of every 15 minutes and some times every 20 minutes . Only thing I would have done different when I bought new was add a pre heater under the hood , which I may still do . We have made almost 700 gallons this season and have only used about 3 cords of wood . I burn hard wood only 36” long .

[Amber Gold]

Ditto what sugar tree said. I have an older intenso-fire arch and get about the same performance. Depending on concentrate level, I make 150-200 gal syrup of cord if hardwood. Pine goes up like kindling.

[GeneralStark]

I have been boiling on mine for 8 years and have been very happy with it. I generally use a mix of well seasoned and somewhat green hardwood and get over 100 gal of syrup to a cord of wood concentrating to about 10-12%. I have found that well seasoned wood just burns quick and hot so I like to mix in a bit of not so well seasoned. I typically cut about 2/3 of my annual supply in the spring after sugaring and then the rest in nov. and dec. I also like to have some softwood slabs available if I can get them to get the fire going with and then shut down with. The soft wood is easier to quickly blow out at the end of the boil.

I also load about every 15-20 minutes but sometimes longer once the rig is hot. Mine does have the preheater in the flue pan hood and I can generally do about 10-12 gal. of syrup per hour and 80-100 gph. I like the flexibility of being able to turn up the air under the fire to bring the temp. up quick and then turn it down to gasify and chug along at a nice consistent temp. Mine only has a temp probe under the flue pan but I would like to add one in the stack as well. I'm not sure what comes standard now.

My only complaint is that the air control hardware they used on mine is prone to sticking and the cables require some maintenance to keep the controls working smooth. This was something they recognized and did do some improvement on under warranty but I'm still not 100% happy about it. I have seen newer versions and they seem to work much better so this is likely a non-issue.

They offer a bunch of add on features and the light in the flue pan hood and the syrup gutter pan (used to drain the pans into) are two that I highly suggest going for. Mine was built with the blower separate which is also nice because I was able to locate it outside of the sugarhouse. I have seen several that have the blower inside the arch.