Evaporator Freezing?

[the old guy]

I Tried This The Other Night. When I Shut Down The Evaporator With Lots Of Sap Still To Boil, I Scooped The Hot Embers From The Fire Box, Put A Few In A Small Ash Bucket And Sat Them Back Inside The Firebox, Put Two Pieces Of 2-inch Styrofoam Insulation Over The Pans And Left It Over Night. Next Morning We Were Boiling In Less Than 10-minutes, The Sap Was Warm Even Though The Outside Temps Dropped To Nearly 12 Degrees. Fyi

The Old Guy

[Brent]

we heat our whole house with a wood stove. When I clean out the stove I put all the ashes in an antique coal ash rocker. I shake this back and forth a bit, the ash falls through and I am left with all the hot coals. I return these to the woods stove and I'm off and burning again in 5 minutes.

On occassion when the weather gets to warm to keep the fire going, I just dump the coals and ash in the rocker bin an put on the lid and leave it. I have found the lid let in enough oxygen to keep the embers hot and burnging slowly for 2 to 3 days. The soft ash kept them pretty well insulated.

Seems to me that this same principle is what the Old Guy is suggesting and I think it would work well. How much oxygen to let in the ash bucket is the key to how fast and hot it burns. A few nights of trial and error would give you the right balance and get you going fast in the morning and condensation on the cover would almost guarantee that you wouldn't boil dry. I am not comfortable with using a plain piece of Styrofoam as the cover, but not sure what else I would use.

[802maple]

flooding your pans with a couple more inches of sap over what you normally boil with and shutting your front draft damper will do the same thing without taking out any of the ash or coals.