How many taps can I handle?? Need advice

[Honey & Syrup]

Hello and thanks for reading. I have been making maple syrup for a few years over a turkey fryer and now I took the griddle off my blackstone 36” griddle and boiling sap on that it has been better. We just welcomed our first baby boy in November and can not wait to have a little helper in the next few years. My excuse to my wife for building all this is so he can have a business when he is older. Well it’s time to upgrade, I am building an evaporator and the pan will be 18” by 48”. I will be adding ceramic blanket and fire brick to the evaporator along with a blower. I will also be adding an RO system with 3 150gpd membranes.

Questions
1.) divided pan or flat pan I am debating please guide me in the right direction.
2.) how much room should I leave for the flame underneath the pan in the arch section of the evaporator? 2 inches from fire brick. 5 inches? I want to have good flame contact with the pan but also want to have a good draft. But it will be 8 inch stove pipe.
3.) when running an RO how much water can be removed and how often do you have to flush it out? Let’s say I have 100 gallons of sap I run the RO from 8pm-5 am. How many gallons of concentrated sap will I have to boil? How many times would I have to flush the system during that run.
4.)with this setup I mentioned above how many taps can I run and not lose my mind. Only boiling on the weekends.

Answer all 4 questions or just 1. I thank you for all the advice.

[Bgreisch]

I would say to go with the divided pan, you will not have to worry about cleaning up the pan every weekend you boil. I used to be on a cinder block evaporator and switched to the Dauntless from smokey lake which has about the same size pan (20"X48") you mentioned and with a blower you will probably boil at about a 12 gph rate. I do not have an RO, and only boil on weekends and if you have a week of great runs then you could have long days boiling on the weekend without an RO and depending on the amount of taps, I have 30 taps. Some questions people might ask you is how many hours do you want to boil on the weekends? By having the divided pan if you find that you have a few hours during the week to boil you can fire it up and boil for a while and just draw off what is made to syrup density, with a flat pan it is batch boiling so harder to just fire it up for a couple hours during the week. I think Smokey Lake says the Dauntless with Divided pan is good for 10 to 55 taps.

Bryan

[SDdave]

Honey & Syrup,

First of all Congratulations on your baby boy! I have (and I'm sure there are others out there) that have been in the same boat as you tapping trees and changing diapers!! :D

1.) I've run both styles, but divided is the best option.
2.) I run propane, so I'll leave that to more experienced sugar makers.
3.) Are you running your RO everyday, or just on the weekends? There are so many factors to consider with that size of RO (I have the same one) to give you a solid answer, but a range would be from 25-75 gallons, average 50 (?). Starting sugar content, desired concentrate %, operating PSI, freshness of sap, temp of sap all play a huge factor in your run time, cleaning/flushing times. But I'd use a conservative estimate of reducing sap by half, and cleaning/flushing at the end of each run. *
4.) This is up to you. You can always pull taps.

Good luck to you this season and let us know how you ended up.

SDdave

[MajorWoodchuck]

Just wondering why you are going with 3x 150gpd membranes? Wouldn't you be better off with 1 or 2 of the 400 gpd membranes for about the same cost? If you run a recirculation loop you can get the % just as high. Having a larger boiler with RO will make a huge difference. My first year with 2.5 hotel pans and one 400 gpd RO...it seems like I was boiling forever with 60 taps. One weekend I logged 34 hours over the steamer from Fri To Sun. The next year I doubled my RO and evaporator with 105 taps and boiling times were a much more reasonable 6 hour duration.

[Honey & Syrup]

Hey thanks! Thanks for the information. I will probably stock pile sap all week and run the RO the day before I boil, and boil on the weekend. I would like to get a dividend pan but boy are they expensive. Did you build your own RO? I like a challenge so I am going to build all of my components except the pan I’m not even going to attempt that.
Hoping to get 2 gallons of syrup this year. The sap flow has been very slow here in NW Ohio.

[Pdiamond]

You can always look for a used pan. They are usually for sale when someone upgrades. Congrats on the baby, I think I can remember back that far, we had 3 boys. Loved every minute of that time while they were growing up. They are all married with their own families now. If you don't want to build, there is always a lease opton that Smoky Lake offers. If you were to get a Dauntless with a divided pan, you could always upgrade it to a flue pan someday. Something to think about.

[bigschuss]

Got 2 kids, soccer games, late season XC skiing, dogs that need walked...in other words boiling sap is not my life. It's a hobby we like to enjoy as a family.

I do 90 taps on my Mason 2x4...no RO. This seems to be the "sweet" spot for me keeping it at the enjoyable hobby level and preventing it from becoming a chore. With RO though, you might be able to get away with a little more and still have it be enjoyable.

[Honey & Syrup]

Pdiamond
Before I order a new pan I was going to wait until the season is over and see what comes available. Hoping I can learn on this evaporator I am building and make a few mistakes and learn tricks along the way. Then upgrade down the road when I get a few more gallons in a season under my belt.

[Honey & Syrup]

You can always look for a used pan. They are usually for sale when someone upgrades. Congrats on the baby, I think I can remember back that far, we had 3 boys. Loved every minute of that time while they were growing up. They are all married with their own families now. If you don't want to build, there is always a lease opton that Smoky Lake offers. If you were to get a Dauntless with a divided pan, you could always upgrade it to a flue pan someday. Something to think about.


Got 2 kids, soccer games, late season XC skiing, dogs that need walked...in other words boiling sap is not my life. It's a hobby we like to enjoy as a family.

I do 90 taps on my Mason 2x4...no RO. This seems to be the "sweet" spot for me keeping it at the enjoyable hobby level and preventing it from becoming a chore. With RO though, you might be able to get away with a little
more and still have it be enjoyable.

I bet you have some long boil days? I looked at their website, but I have the time and ability to make one and always need a challenge. I think it will be more rewarding that way. But down the road I will want to upgrade I am sure

[82cabby]

1.) divided pan or flat pan I am debating please guide me in the right direction.

At 18x48 a flat pan can be a bit cumbersome to empty. I run a 24x48 divided pan and like it very much because I can draw off during long days and leave a sweetened pan between boils.


2.) how much room should I leave for the flame underneath the pan in the arch section of the evaporator? 2 inches from fire brick. 5 inches? I want to have good flame contact with the pan but also want to have a good draft. But it will be 8 inch stove pipe.

2 inches between pan and brick downstream of the firebox sounds about right. I think the rule of thumb is have that cross area equal your stack cross area. Can someone confirm that?

3.) when running an RO how much water can be removed and how often do you have to flush it out? Let’s say I have 100 gallons of sap I run the RO from 8pm-5 am. How many gallons of concentrated sap will I have to boil? How many times would I have to flush the system during that run.

My older RO is 4 150 gpd membranes running an aquatec 8852 pump. It is very happy running at about 110 psi at which it removes about 50% of the water from the sap (ie 1.5% sap becomes 3% concentrate and 100 gallons becomes 50 gallons). In 9 hours from 8 pm to 5 am it would do about 100 gallons but there are a lot of variables so it’s not that easy to say.
I flush mine after every long run and/or before every anticipated down time. 100 gallons in one shot is fine to wait and rinse after it’s done. I’ve pushed mine as far as 300 in one long run.


4.)with this setup I mentioned above how many taps can I run and not lose my mind. Only boiling on the weekends.

We have 120 on a 2x4 divided pan and a homemade RO (this year actually two ROs…. Long story). I think we are on the limit of the setup for weekend boiling. If you’re starting out maybe start with 30-50 and see how it goes?

[bigschuss]

I bet you have some long boil days?

I do...but not terrible. When I am sick of boiling I just walk away from it and do something else. The thing about being a hobbyist (and a parent) is to be able to separate yourself from the hobby when it becomes a chore that you begin to resent. I am not married to my sap.

[TheNamelessPoet]

I do...but not terrible. When I am sick of boiling I just walk away from it and do something else. The thing about being a hobbyist (and a parent) is to be able to separate yourself from the hobby when it becomes a chore that you begin to resent. I am not married to my sap.

Me either... yet lol

I run Propane for the same reason, I have wife/kids/etc and she will kill me if I leave it to just her lol. It has saved me in the past when I had to rush out of the house.

But, I have an RO bucket (RB10), a 38 x 17 Silver Creak divided pan and I can tell you, I am REALLY glad I got the pan. I will admit however, I went all out and got the thermometer and the warming pan. The warming pan was worth it, but i run at 1/2" to 3/4" so the thermometer was a waste, it is not in the sap. it does however give me a GREAT judge of how low it is once things get a little darker and foamier.

I have about 55-60 taps and boil mostly on the weekends but I will run for an hour or 2 at night if I have "too much" which has NOT happened this year with the weird weather so far, but honestly, NOW is when you would normally start tapping around here so I am not overly concerned.

I run mine through the RO enough to get it to 8-10%. I will recirculate until I get to 4-4.5% then last shot through I RO into either a 35 gallon tank, or buckets, depending how much sap I have. I only get about 3.5-4 GPH. But I don't run the propane full bore, just enough to get a good boil. I found that for myself, I get diminishing returns if I get much more heat under it. But I think my pan is only rated for 4-5 so I wouldn't expect to get much more.

If you are starting o get backlogged with "too much" sap, you can try concentrating some 1-2 days before up to 4%. I wouldn't go much over that unless you are using it the next day and it is going to freeze overnight. Concentrate spoils faster but I have found that a relatively helpful solution to make it 2 days. Take some of the 2% and freeze it in something that is food grade and has a wider opening at the top than the bottom. Then freeze a bunch like that. Before you leave for work, you can drop 1-2 in the bucket or more if it is large tank, and the frozen sap will help keep it cool. It does not work well above 2% I have found. 8% just gets super slushy, and 4% only froze on the 1" or so right on the inside of the container and the middle held most of the sugar in liquid, so it melted pretty quickly. Use the 2% if you can instead of water, as it wont water it down as much.

[Andy VT]

I'll take a stab at the divided question. I like to think of it as you have a pan, and you have your attention. Only one of them can be divided. If your pan is divided, your attention must be undivided. If your attention is divided, your pan must be undivided.

With a family of 5, the youngest being 4 years old with special needs, my attention will probably never be undivided, so my pan will probably never be divided. Basically I've got it down so I can multi-task with non-sugaring responsibilities at all times except when my batch is over 215F or so, which occurs about 10 times per season for 20 minutes each.

But if you can truly focus on the evaporator on those weekends, I'll bet you'll like divided. Of course, you can always run a divided pan like a non-divided pan, although I suspect you have to pay some attention that no particular channel is getting more concentrated than you think...

In fact, I'm still new at this so this thinking may evolve, but I sort of think that for any setup less than 2x6 or so, it is hard to justify undivided attention for making such a small amount of syrup. If I'm going to make 7 gallons of syrup (my goal for this year), and spend a total of 40 hours boiling it, I'd better be able to get some non-sugaring things done during much of that 40 hours, at least at this busy stage of life.

Just another way to look at it. You'll have to decide what works best for your situation of course.

[bigschuss]

Me either... yet lol

I run Propane for the same reason, I have wife/kids/etc and she will kill me if I leave it to just her lol. It has saved me in the past when I had to rush out of the house.

But, I have an RO bucket (RB10), a 38 x 17 Silver Creak divided pan and I can tell you, I am REALLY glad I got the pan. I will admit however, I went all out and got the thermometer and the warming pan. The warming pan was worth it, but i run at 1/2" to 3/4" so the thermometer was a waste, it is not in the sap. it does however give me a GREAT judge of how low it is once things get a little darker and foamier.

I have about 55-60 taps and boil mostly on the weekends but I will run for an hour or 2 at night if I have "too much" which has NOT happened this year with the weird weather so far, but honestly, NOW is when you would normally start tapping around here so I am not overly concerned.

I run mine through the RO enough to get it to 8-10%. I will recirculate until I get to 4-4.5% then last shot through I RO into either a 35 gallon tank, or buckets, depending how much sap I have. I only get about 3.5-4 GPH. But I don't run the propane full bore, just enough to get a good boil. I found that for myself, I get diminishing returns if I get much more heat under it. But I think my pan is only rated for 4-5 so I wouldn't expect to get much more.

If you are starting o get backlogged with "too much" sap, you can try concentrating some 1-2 days before up to 4%. I wouldn't go much over that unless you are using it the next day and it is going to freeze overnight. Concentrate spoils faster but I have found that a relatively helpful solution to make it 2 days. Take some of the 2% and freeze it in something that is food grade and has a wider opening at the top than the bottom. Then freeze a bunch like that. Before you leave for work, you can drop 1-2 in the bucket or more if it is large tank, and the frozen sap will help keep it cool. It does not work well above 2% I have found. 8% just gets super slushy, and 4% only froze on the 1" or so right on the inside of the container and the middle held most of the sugar in liquid, so it melted pretty quickly. Use the 2% if you can instead of water, as it wont water it down as much.

I have been thinking about doing an RO set up. Right now at the level we are tapping I don't really find myself craving one. Going to retire in 4 years or so and I have the potential to double my tap count and could easily triple of even quadruple the amount of syrup I make each year. Would most certainly think about a RO system then.

[therealtreehugger]

1.)
2.) how much room should I leave for the flame underneath the pan in the arch section of the evaporator? 2 inches from fire brick. 5 inches? I want to have good flame contact with the pan but also want to have a good draft. But it will be 8 inch stove pipe.

2 inches between pan and brick downstream of the firebox sounds about right. I think the rule of thumb is have that cross area equal your stack cross area. Can someone confirm that?


I’ll confirm that.

The area of your stack (pi * r^2) should roughly equal the area below your pan (l * w). For me, the 8 inch stack area, about 50 square inches (don’t have my calculator with me at the moment) meant that my 28 inch wide evaporator should have about 2 - 2.5 inches under the pan. That was one of the big modifications I made recently, and it made a BIG difference.

[sandman6921]

I took the leap this year and put together a RO system. (3 - 100gpd membranes) wish I would have done it years ago now.
I was able to take my sap from 1.5 to 6 in one pass and aimed for around a 2:1 ratio. SO a 60g barrel of sap got turned into 20 gallons of concentrate and 40 gallons of water. I could adjust it from pulling minimal water out to probably more than what I did, but the more water you pull out, the slower you run. I let our run all night in my detatched garage and that worked great.