Evaporator questions

[Al]

All right don't laugh. How do you measure your flue size? No smart butted remarks Rick. :D My evaporator is rated for 100 to 125 taps. Is that rated on full buckets every day? Because full buckets every day has rarely happened here. So if I went with 150 taps I should be alright except for the days they are full. Then just boil like theres no tomorrow. :D
They also say my rig is good for only 10 gallons an hour. How can that be if a 2x6 is 30 to 35. A 2x5 1/2 should do at least 15 to 25 gallons an hour. It will at my place. :D Heck they say a half pint will do 8 to 10 stock. How do they figure that out?
Take care

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Al,

I agree that the 10 gph per hour is garbage. Your evaporator should do 20 to 25 gph stock and after you get good at firing it, you may even get it to 30 gph with a blower.

As far as taps, the rate they figure is a gallon per tap per day. Some days, you may get 2+ gallons per tap, but don't worry, you should be able to handle up to 200 taps with your evaporator and you have more time to boil that most of us, so that makes it easier.

Tap away friend! The best problem you can have it to have too much sap and have to dump some. It is better to have too much than not enough!!! :D :D :D :D

I thought they were based on a season average as far as number of taps. Some days you are going to have too much and some days not enough.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I guess you could base it on a season average, but most info you will read, they base the evaporator rating on 1 gallon per tap per day. Of course, in a season, there are a lot of days you won't get any or little sap, but most assume that you are boiling off your sap in a 24 hour period. They are figuring what is the amount of taps you can handle if you do get a gallon of sap from each tap in a one day period and you boil for 10 hours!

[RUSTYBUCKET]

Question for you guys running a 2X6, wood fired. What length wood does the arch take??
My current evaporator takes 16" stock but if I move up to a 2X6 this year, I want to know what length I should be cutting my sticks.

Thanks. Hope everyone has been enjoying springtime.

Russ


SAPHEAD (or anyone else): If you see this, do you have anymore info on Maplerama? I'd like to go and talk with some vendors. Hopefully I'll be in the market to order a 2X6.

[themapleking]

cut your wood the same length as your grates and spit'em a little smaller than you do for your wood furance.

[saphead]

Maplerama July 29-31 @mount snow grand summit resort west dover Vt. Hosted by Windham County Maple Producers. Info: John Caldwell 802-387-6615, e-mail caldxski@sover.net. I thick Marty Sprague from Whitingham is in charge of the vendors. Anyone else know anything else yet?

[RUSTYBUCKET]

Thanks for the info. I'll send John a note.

Mapleking, I usually load my wood furnace with 8"-10" dia logs. I got real spoiled not having to split wood until the maple syrup bug bit. :wink:


Russ

[FMWARREN]

Rusty,cut your wood 24" and split hard wood small , soft wood can be a little bigger(12X24 pine chunk we split with 4 way) . FM

[Breezy Lane Sugarworks]

If you can burn only hardwood it would be much better. And if you have a lot of softwood, mix it in a little. That is because you can get a much hotter fire with the hardwood, and way less creosote, so it will be much easier to clean the bottom of your pans. And if the soot side of your pans are cleaner you can probably get a little more evaporation rate, because the fire can have a better contact with the pans.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

With a 2x6, you can even split your wood 16 to 18 inches if you are splitting it by hand and that length will work good and make it a lot easier to split than 24" wood. :D

[Seibold's Sugarhouse]

Hello,
I'm new to this site, I wish I knew about this two years ago whe I started boiling in CT. Was this site here 2 years ago??? Anyway I have some evap. questions. I first started with 25 taps and a half pint on cinder blocks. In 2004 I upgraded to a 2x3 ss drop flue (no float boxes) and the half pint as the syrup pan. I connected them with a 1/2 inch copper pipe with a ball valve to regulate the flow. For a preheater I have a 10 x 24 copper pan 8in deep (homemade) The preheater sits on the flue pan and the sap in there get to about 110 deg. It holds about 8 gallons. I have come across a ss steam hood with a built in preheater which I might use eventually. I do everything outside. This year I built temp. wood sides attached to a temp. pallet floor. We hung tarps on the sides of the walls to keep some of the wind off. My question is, I'm only able to boil about 10 maybe 12 gph. WHY? I've been readin all your posts and I see 20 -30 gph with 2x6's. What am I doing wrong? Should I be boiling faster? I use hardwood. Any help would be great. I live in CT and there aren't to many of us down here.
Thanks,
Jason

P.S. I thought I was nuts until I came to this site. It's nice to know there are others out there

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

Al- I wouldn't take the advice brandon gave you on your best problem with too much sap and dump it.I had the dump the sap syndrome this spring for the first time in my life and almost cryed. Well i had to work 3 12hr work days with a day off and back at 3 more 12hr. work days... Well to make a long story short went from making a high Dark amber right into Commercial(Tasted great thought) and had close to 3,500 Gals(Yes thirty Five Hundred Gallons) of 2.8% sap on hand that had been gaining on my storage over the meley.I got farther into my woodpile then i had been in several years and the tarp rotted off it which made for some seriously wet wood and was boiling 75-85 Gals. an Hr.-Instead of 150.Talk about getting into deep poop!!! You do the math on that and i bet i won't let that happen again.I'll call up Bascom's and have them send over a truck and at least get something for it before it gets too far gone. I wasn't going to burn up my wood wet or not to make $8 a gallon syrup...Lesson learned BigTime...Kevin

[Al]

Hi Jason and welcome. I started out small also and now boil off a 24x66 evaporator. I used to boil outside but finally built a small sugar house and it really made a differance in the boils I got even thou it was with an evaporator. Wind/wind gusts make it harder to maintain a boil and could be part of the problem. Is your arch bricked correctly? How's your draft? Do you use any gasket material with your arch or between your pans? It could be alot of things. It's to bad we can't insert pictures here. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words. :D Maybe one of the syrup gods here can give you some better answers. You've come to the right place to get answers for any questions you have.
Take care

[steve J]

when you say gasket material between pans do you mean there should be a gasket between the rim on top of arch and the pan that sits on it . This will be my first season with a real arch

[forester1]

A gasket between the pans and arch will help seal air leaks and improve efficiency of your evaporator. You can seal the gasket down to the arch rail with rpg high temp silicone. The dealers sell arch gasket for $3 a foot I think. Also you could use ceramic blanket there instead and between the flue and syrup pan too.

[Al]

Hi Steve, that's it exactly. I'm doing mine this year even thou the dealer thinks it won't make much differance. To me a gain in efficiency in a gain in efficiency. No matter how small. :D