Oil tank evaporator add-on?

[Hunt4sap]

Hi all, my current wood evaporator has direct flame contact with the bottom of my stainless pan but I'd like to add a layer of metal on top of the wood burner so that when I draw off I don't have flames coming out of the wood burner if that makes sense, what is the best metal to use there?

[MajorWoodchuck]

I would think that any metal you put between the fire and your pan will drastically increase your boil times. Best you could do would be to raise your pan a little when it's ready to be pulled off and slide a piece of sheet metal in at that time. When my syrup is getting close to being done I let my fire almost burn out so I don't have much flames coming out when my pull my pans.

[Hunt4sap]

Right, I've thought about doing it that way also but if pan has 1/2" nearup in it and I tip it too much it will almost instantly burn a black spot in it but I think that's how I'm going to have to try it( there's times when I have to do the draw off on my own and a cover over wood fire to stop sparks and flames/ smoke would be great)

[NhShaun]

Do you cover up your ash door to help dull the fire down and the draft?

[Hunt4sap]

Ash door?
Got a piece of 16 gauge ss to slip in right before draw off

[Hkb82]

Looking at your photos you could drill 4 holes in the angle iron that is in the corners. Drill the holes 3 inches or so above the height the pan sits now then just lift it using a simple pulley system to make it doable when your running solo. You’ll still get the bit of heat and smoke/sparks till you get the steel slid in place but would be a nice setup for your rig. I did something similar to this for my first 2x4. I didn’t really have the room to slide it to one side so going up for me was a space saver.

[Hkb82]

Sorry I checked out your info and saw the barrel evaporator pics you had for sale in 2018. I didn’t see it was for sale the first time I looked at the pics. You could still probably lift the pan up a bit you just wouldn’t have those angle pieces to use as stoppers.

[Hunt4sap]

Well I end up getting a piece of 16 gauge stainless steel so I can slide it in between when I'm ready to draw off, evaporating Saturday so I'll see how it works...
It's not so bad when I have an extra person to help me, mostly gives me issues when I'm by myself so hopefully with this"lid"I can slide on top of my wood burner it will make drawing off less hectic (and remove the possibility of scorching my flat pan)!!!