Pan siphon ?

[ronr]

I was looking at this auction on eBay and wonder what the copper pipes bridging over the tops of the pans are. Is it some kind of siphon to keep the pans at the same level? What is the fitting in the top middle?

I had considered something like this but did not think it would work.

eBay item 330219987563

[chipa]

I would say you are correct on those being siphons. "Cantin" evaporators use a simular way of connecting pans but through boxes on the sides (siphons are lower)

[802maple]

My grandfather had one of those and the fitting in the middle was for sucking the sap up into the tube. When you sucked the sap into your mouth it ment it was full and you would then shut the small valve off (some had a check valve)and it would siphon fron one section to the next. It wasn't bad to do when it was cold but they would quite often lose prime during the boil and somebody would have to fill the tube again. Do I need to tell the rest of the story. There would be alot of burnt lips around our sugarhouse by the end of the season.

[Hal]

My father remembered boiling on an evaporator that used a siphon feed. I don't remember what kind it was, but I think it was a pretty common arrangement back in the "dark ages".He said you wanted to have two or three extra siphons filled up and sitting in a pail of sap, ready to substitute for the one in the pan when it quit working. All it needed was to get a little low or have the sap splashed away from the end of the tube, and it would stop. It was much easier to replace with a fresh one than to try to restart the flow in the HOT one from the pan.

[ronr]

Thanks for the answers. I am putting together a "rush job" rig using old stainless kitchen sinks and that sounds like it would work to transfer from bowl to bowl. I really didn't want to spend the time to weld tubes between the bowls as I plan on building a better rig this summer. The siphon sounds better than ladling bowl to bowl.

[802maple]

It was a good idea to have more around, but probably my grandfather being as stubborn as he was at times preferred burning his lips instead of doing the right thing and spending more money. hehehe