preheater sap temp

[Fred Henderson]

Is there any truth that if sap is preheated to 200 degrees in a parallel heater that it will make the syrup dark?

[Jim Brown]

Fred; I have only experience with our steamaway but we are feeding our evap. with 185-190 degree sap from the steamaway and have made some of the lightest syrup we ever made this year.

my two cents

Jim

[brookledge]

I have never heard that. The sap is not in the pre heater very long. My preheater has about 6-8 parrallel lines and the feed rate is over 2 gallons per minute. So I' say the sap is in the pre heater for less than 2 minutes.
having hot sap entering gives instantanious boiling where it enters the flues.
Compared to my old evaporator where many times the cold sap coming in would keep many of the flues from boiling thus adding time that the sap has to sit in the evaporator
Keith

[tuckermtn]

I have a friend who used to have a 2500 tap set up with either a 5 X 14 or something about that size..oil fired, with steam away...all his sap ran right into the sugarhouse...for 2 years almost all he could make was dark syrup, even on clean equipment with good fresh sap...he was convinced that it was the added time in the steam-a-way...that is just his observation...

[brookledge]

I have heard some say they think that a steam a way makes syrup darker but never a parrallel pre heater. But I have never used a steam away so I can't say.
Keith

[saphead]

I've heard small Steam Aways will cause dark syrup but larger ones are fine. I think it all has to due with the duration of the sap in the preheater or steam away.

[DS Maple]

Last year we didn't make any light amber syrup and somebody told me it was probably a result of the depth in the SteamAway being too high. This year was different though and we made some really nice light amber. I think more than anything these are just opinions and myths. It really depends on the year. Strangely enough though, this year we did manage to go right past medium amber to dark. The dark amber wasn't anywhere near as dark as the sample in the grade set, but it was just a hair darker than the medium sample so we had to grade it down, (hated having to do that.) I don't think this or anything in the past is a result of the SteamAway though. On the other hand, if the theory of running it too deep has some fact to it, it's pretty easy to solve. You can't burn anything in the SteamAway so it wouldn't worry me to drop the level a little if need be. Also, does a 3x8 SteamAway count as a "big" one.

[Jim Brown]

Gentlemen; we have what you would call a small one as it is 2x4 and we have made a lot of light syrup in the passed Just not last year . This year was different for all if I'm reading the post correctly.


Jim

[Brent]

our 2 x 6 has a preheater and right up until the last batch before going buddy, everything we made was lighter than the lightest Ontario grade in the grading set.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Some years it is hard to make light syrup and some years it is hard to make dark syrup. I can't see anything affecting the grade too much that is just preheating the sap or partially boiling it. A steamaway may possibly make it a little darker, but I don't see any way possible a preheater would. Sometimes people get carried away and blow things way out of proportion and they make dark syrup because of dirty tanks, tubing or many other things because they are a little lazy and then use other things as a escape goat.

[Brent]

I would think that a steam away or any preheater is not likely to cause darkening. I "think" the overall effect is that it takes a certain amount of exposure to heat to get rid of the water and whether it is done in one element of an evaporator of 4 elements (preheater, sap pan, front and rear syrup pans ) it should be more or less irrelevant.

This was my first year with a preheater and we got nothing but off the chart extra light right up until the sap went buddy, and even then it was still Ontario #1 Light.

[tapper]

I have used a parallel flow preheater for 2 seasons have 200 degree sap from it most of the time. No problem making light syrup with most of this season being light.