Sweetening the Pan - Drop Plue

[bryankloos]

Hi All,

This is the first year with the new drop flue pan.
What is the process for sweetening the pan and establishing a gradient?
I imaging the flue pan evaporatoes fatster than the syrup pan...
Do I draw off from the syrum pan and return to the back of the flue pan?
Thanks,

Bryan

[cpmaple]

Don't do that what you mentioned, flue pan is design to boil off excess water in sap before getting to syrup pan.How is your flue pan an syrup pan connected? Float box? If so the jus keep boiling till you make finish product aka... syrup to draw off in front pan. Sugaring the pan just takes more raw sap to get that frist draw off. With my old 2*6 drop flue it would hold 40 gallons for run level an I would have to boil another 80 gallons on top of that before I pulled anything off at 2% sugar . Hope this helps cpmaple

[DRoseum]

Hi Bryan -just fill flue and syrup pan to same level, fire it up and let the gradient form naturally as new sap/concentrate enters flue pan from the float box. Make sure all valves are open that connect your pans.

[tcross]

keep boiling and adding sap until syrup comes out the syrup pan. if you don't have enough sap for the first run to make syrup, just make sure you block off the syrup pan connection to the flue pan so it doesn't all mix up. next time you get sap, repeat till syrup comes out. my 2 1/2 x 8 takes 300 gallons or so to make syrup. i suspect a 2x4 would take 100 gallons or so. there's someone on here that did a break down on how to calculate how much sap you need to sweeten the pan. can't recall who, but if you search enough i'm sure you'll find it.

[Pdiamond]

I have a 2 x 4 raised flue pan set and don't even start a boil until I have 125 gallons of sap. That way I know I have enough to sweeten the pans and may get a small draw-off.