Recommendation on Evaporators?

[ProBoot]

Currently boiling on a Oil tank arch with a D&G 2'X4' flat pan, divided inside.

My boil rate is pretty slow, about 10-12 G/h I think. Likely less.

My plan to increase taps from my existing 75 to 150 next year has me thinking about a new evaporator and wondering what is recommended and size?

I have an RO already and it's the RB15 setup, 24GPH

I have ample expansion up to about 400 taps on property and the sky in my area.

Any thoughts? help?

[DRoseum]

I'd upgrade the RO first probably. You get more effociency and bang for your buck there. As for evaporators, i love my smokylake pans. A nice 2 x 4 or 2 x 6 pan set with raised or drop flues would be good depending on how many taps do you see yourself getting to? Are you on vacuum?

For context, I have 138 yaps on vacuum, and 2 big ROs (each with 6 x 600 gpd and dual pumps) and use a 20 x 40 drop flue pan set. It boils around 12 gph and I made nearly 49 gallons this year and it worked fine. I wouldn't mind a slightly bigger pan with higher evap rate, but you get more bang for your buck on the RO side. A 600 gpd membrane takes out 6 gph of permeate. That's equivalent to a 20 x 40 flat pan. So 12 membranes, x 6 gph plus 12 gph boiling = 84 gph total, which takes care of the ~250 gallons per day i routinely get.

If I upgraded my evap, I would primarily be focused on lengthening the front pan to get more linear feet of gradient to influence the color (lighter) than to really speed up the processing.

Key things to consider on pans...
(1) reversibility (this is HUGE) for keeping pans free of niter build up.
(2) not too big where you'd start / stop frequently
(3) flue pans increase boiling rate, but also increase maintenance (cleaning both sap and fire side of the flues)
(4) good airtight arches (with blowers) make a big difference.

[BAP]

I would be keeping your eyes out for someone selling a good, used evaporator now the season is winding down. Stepping up to a 2x6 or even 2x8 with a rear flue pan would be a game changer. Yes adding more RO will help, but being able to boil faster makes a big difference too. I’m boiling 230 to 250 taps depending upon if I tap them all on a 2x8 I bought used and have a ROBucket 25 with the 10gph membranes.

[Vtmbz]

Currently boiling on a Oil tank arch with a D&G 2'X4' flat pan, divided inside.

My boil rate is pretty slow, about 10-12 G/h I think. Likely less.

My plan to increase taps from my existing 75 to 150 next year has me thinking about a new evaporator and wondering what is recommended and size?

I have an RO already and it's the RB15 setup, 24GPH

I have ample expansion up to about 400 taps on property and the sky in my area.

Any thoughts? help?

Im tapping 350 trees with the help of a 2/4 dropped flue and a second hand two post 4040 reverse osmosis. The r,o removes 120 gallons/hr of water from the sap, way more cost effective than new stainless steel will ever be, but a used evaporator can change that calculation. I want to hear more about sky tappping😄

[ebliese]

We were at 150-160 taps this year which is where you are thinking of going for next year. So here is our set up and hopefully this gives you some information to help in your decision making. Our rig is a 2x4 raised flue (natural draft) from Smoky Lake. Our Single Post 80gph from The RO Bucket compliments it quite well. We RO as we boil so having an RO to match the boil rate was something we wanted. But those are our preferences. We went to the current tap count from 100 because 100 was too little to make enough permeate to rinse the RO. This year we pretty much always had enough permeate on hand to rinse the RO.

Both upgrading the rig and the upgrading the RO are sound plans, as others have suggested.

[TapTapTap]

Decide on how much time you have and want to spend boiling. Then figure out the boiling rate needed to meet your time goal for the 150 taps based upon your RO production. Once you know a boiling rate you can select an evaporator. Future upgrades to 400 taps would mean longer boils, a bigger RO, or both.
Ken

[snakes14009]

As someone who upgraded to a new evaporator this season and went from 120 to 220 taps Upgrade the RO first. buy a single post 4x40 dont waste time with the little ro's. with a single 4x40 it is upgradable for a lot less money. and the RO does not have to be used where a bigger evaporator you have to have "X" amount of sap to boil. I knew a RO was in my future but boy what a wake up call when i bought one that would run though 100 gallons an hour and will be able to expand with you.

[maple marc]

+10000 on snakes' post. Four years ago I was shopping for my first RO and a dealer offered me a good deal on a trade-in on my 2x6 evaporator. What a joke--$5k+ for an evaporator slightly better than my 29 gph.....vs $1,100 for an RO that takes off 45-50 gph on a warm day. Single-post 4x40. So now I can take off almost 80 gph!! So now I'm done with those late night boils. 4 hours instead of 12. Put your money into RO.

[ProBoot]

Thanks everyone! I was hoping to look at some system to better regulate the automation of Sap from holding tank to RO to Evaporator and maintain the levels in the evaporator without me having to measure it all the time and add sap when it's getting lower. That and a way to get away from "batch" making but I doubt with my systems it will really happen too soon.

[jungmaria]

Hi ProBoot,

I did the same upgrade last year. Off grid so no RO, so upgraded 2x6 oil tank evaporator to 2x8 raised flue. We increased our taps this year from 175-265 as a result. Found that we pretty much doubled our boil rate so made nearly double the syrup for same amount of boiling and wood. Still using too much wood for my liking, I really wish I could use an RO (yes I could I I ran a genearator all day - but not doing that). So I’d say the RO is the way to go for reducing both boiling time and wood used.
Where are you located? I see we’re both in the Eastern Ont forum.

[DanielS.]

Increasing RO size will give you more bang for your buck, but for 150-400 taps you'll definitely want a larger evaporator regardless. It's hard to go wrong with a 2X6 evaporator for adaptability to all boiling styles. You can go down to 60-70 taps and be pretty lax about boiling and firing times. Get a little more regular with boiling and you can handle 150-250 with ease. Put an RO system on it and you can easily handle 400-500 (depending on RO setup). Or if you're like me and have to scale back to a really small setup because your work is too busy, you can put a cheap 2X4 flat pan on the back in place of the flue pan and cap off the front pan to be a good size for 30-50 taps.

I'd wait a few months and start looking at new setups. Any used evaporator 2X8 or smaller seems to sell for nearly the price of a new one. Wait a month or two, and all the manufacturers start offering significant discounts. Someone above mentioned Smokey Lake, and they do make a fine evaporator. But I see you're in Canada. If I may speak bluntly, I suspect you're like the rest of us Canadians right now: With all the anti-Canadian rhetoric coming out of Washington you probably don't want to support an American company if you can help it. D&G and Lapierre of course makes good stuff, but are very pricey. I'd check out LS Bilodeau. They have great sales during the summer & fall, and their units are as good as any. Even when not on sale, their prices are still significantly less than most others. You could also check out Thor: Good prices and top-quality units. I have experience with pan sets from both manufacturers, and both are top-notch.