Just curious about niter in a big evaporator

[Swingpure]

I watched a TV show that was about the building of a Maple company and their huge sugar shack and store. They had a huge evaporator in the sugar shack. I think they collect 10,000 gallons of sap in a day.

I am just wondering how the heck they process all that sap, and deal with the niter, and how they clean it.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/089I5IyNs_Xy0w8THUl5cjyZw

I think I will go down and see this sugar shack and operation in person.

https://www.backwoodsmaplesyrup.ca/

[ecp]

At the risk of stating the obvious, they us an RO and boil the concentrate that is how it is processed haha. Really though it is just bigger equipment the process doesn't change much. Niter build up does get worse in some cases, and in some cases if you concentrate higher and keep the liquid moving it builds up less (different for every operation). Pan washers (and plenty of acid) are more common every year to deal with the niter build up. Honestly 10,000 gallons of sap per day sounds like a lot of liquid, but with larger RO's and more efficient evaporators that can be done as an afterwork hobby and you can still get to bed by 10:00p.m.

[Someclown]

With a 6ft x 16ft evaporator and RO it doesnt take long. Not saying that's the size of his rig but certainly close

https://www.tiktok.com/@lsbilodeau/video/7342677934039190790

[maple flats]

The video that come up in the above link shows me that not everyone believes in splitting their wood to wrist size. on my 3x8 I never put a log like that in my arch, all but 1 piece was wrist size, the one piece was a block of hemlock that I couldn't get to split, and it was almost 8" across, but was not round. It had numerous knots that the splitter couldn't break up, thus I decided to let the fire split it. After 2 days of roaring fires in the arch, the chunk was still not burned up, I threw it in to the woods to rot. That was about 12-14 yrs ago, I never tried to find it after that, it might still be whole for all I know.

[DMF]

on my 3x8 I never put a log like that in my arch,

I don't even put a log like that in my outdoor wood boiler! :o

[maple flats]

Yes, it looked like they were looking for a disaster. I hope when he finally gave it a hard hick that it didn't hit drop flues.
Back when I bought my 3x8 raised flue the previous owner had thrown a block of wood in that hit the leading edge of the flues, it left a noticable wrinkle, but no leaks. That's just carelessness.