Introducing Ourselves

[richd]

Greetings,

My wife and I are located in Cental Illinois. We tap between 30 and 50 tapes depending how hard we want to work.

We use a woodfired flat pan evaporator. The pan was salvaged from a buffet line cooling pan. Along with making syrup we have bee hives and build stoneware pottery. Have provided pictures of the evaporator and our pottery. Looking forward to future discussion on syrup making.

Rich & LIz
http://www.maplewoodspottery.com

Pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23601355@N02/

[tapper]

Welcom. The maple discussion never ends here.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Rich and Liz,

Awesome looking arch you have built. It appears you have put a lot of time, thought and effort into it. Just wanted to mention it as others will want to look at it for sure. I like the firing doors and it appears the lower brick pull out for draft!

What size it the pan on it and what kind of gph rate do you get??

[richd]

I am glad you like it.The pan is 2x5 and 4 1/2 inches deep. The arch is concrete block and lined with fire brick. The smaller brick do pull out for air.

Welded up a pre-heater out of s/s. I use an aquarium pump to move sap from my holding tank to the pre-heater. It takes 10/11 hours to cook down 100 gallons of sap. We do a finish cooking on a couple of burners. I do sell some syrup but its mostly a hobby.

[tapper]

Wow that is awesome! That evaporator is a work of art! Nice Job!!

[HHM-07]

richd

that is a great looking arch, would you like to build me a fireplace?? good lick this season

[Sugarmaker]

Richd,
Loved the arch and brick work. Nice job!

Chris