Keeping syrup in pans

[Biz]

I am getting syrup spitting out the preheater pan of my 2x5 evaporator on good firings. Mostly on the side opposite the float box. It coats the sides of my pans, runs sticky goo down the arch, on the floor, and generally makes a heck of a mess. I have to put catch pans and cardboard on the floor and caught nearly 2 quarts in a half season. Wood fired SL, no blower. Using softwood or a mix hard/soft. How do I keep the syrup in the pans? Does a great job boiling otherwise, get a consistent 25gph with good dry wood.

Dave

[Ed R]

I would start out with adding 2 drops of defoamer in the flue pan after each firing. If that doesn't work up it to 4.

[Andy VT]

My theory is excess niter. I don't have a setup like yours... I just run into this on the kitchen stove. I don't have a solution yet, just theories. But my theory is that if you filter your sweet, clean the pan while its out, then put the sweet back in, the problem will go away. Someone told me that sap sitting longer will produce more niter than sap that hasn't sat waiting.

There was a thread about this on here last year or so too. A search word might be "jumping".

Last year was my first real year of sugaring, and as an experiment, I kept norway and sugar maple sap separate. Only the norway had this problem. I thought it was that norway has more niter, but the person mentioned above (from a facebook forum) was adamant that the only factor was how long the sap sat. This could make sense. I had a lot less norway sap, so it likely did sit longer.

This year I've been mixing all sap together and boiling fairly promptly, and have not had the jumping problem much... but it has started happening slightly on occasion. On those occasions, I scraped the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon and that seemed to calm it down.

[Biz]

OK good ideas. I see sap jumping out of the flues after I add defoamer. The flue pan does not have a lot of niter build up. But I can try these next season as we are done for the year now. Maybe play with the draft opening too. Any others? I can't be the only one with this problem. No hood to catch the escaping sap.

Dave

[Ed R]

Add immediately after firing or just prior to firing before the boil gets out of control. You want it to boil like a locomotive, just not a runaway locomotive. We used to have a problem with this on our 4x14 before we added defoamer every time we fired. Don't tame down your draft you want it to boil hard like that. Before we added defoamer every time we made a metal splash shield to keep it in but we don't need it now

[Pdiamond]

I believe you can get a shield from Smoky Lake for your pan to prevent the sap from jumping out.

[Sugar Bear]

I am getting syrup spitting out the preheater pan of my 2x5 evaporator on good firings. Mostly on the side opposite the float box. It coats the sides of my pans, runs sticky goo down the arch, on the floor, and generally makes a heck of a mess. I have to put catch pans and cardboard on the floor and caught nearly 2 quarts in a half season. Wood fired SL, no blower. Using softwood or a mix hard/soft. How do I keep the syrup in the pans? Does a great job boiling otherwise, get a consistent 25gph with good dry wood.

Dave

Is it possible any of the trees you are tapping are Norwegian Maples? I have boiled Norwegian sap many years ago and it always wanted to spit like crazy. I have heard of others having the same problem with it.

[Biz]

No Norway maples, just a mix 30% sugar maples, 70% red maples.

Dave