Fuel vs. Gal's of Syrup

[Amber Gold]

How many gallons of syrup should I figure per chord of wood? It'll all be pine because I can get that for free, not counting my labor. I want to make sure I have enough wood and don't want to be burning my house wood to make syrup. Should I figure 0.25 gal per tap or 0.33 gal per tap? It'll likely be a combination of tubing and buckets, depending on what I can get the property owners to agree to.

Also curious with the high cost of fuel oil, how many gallons of oil does it take to make a gallon of syrup?

Thanks

Josh

[mapleman3]

on a normal arch, figure between 18-25gals syrup per cord of wood and appx 3.5 gals oil per gal syrup

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I would figure around 15 gallons of syrup per cord of wood for a stanard evaporator ie 2x6, 2x8, 3x8, 4x10

If it is a longer evaporator say a 3x12, 4x12, 4x14, you can push the numbers up to 20 to 25 per cord possibly. Also depends on what type of wood you are burning, hard vs soft, quality of wood, airtight arch, and lots of other factors. Not too many get the 25 gallon per cord with a regular arch burning raw sap unless it is 2.5 to 3 percent in sugar or higher and that is still not likely with 2.5 to 3 percent sugar.

[peacemaker]

amber gold i have herd 1 cord makes 30 gals but i would assume they mean all hardwood ...now as far as u only burning pine because its free try to find yourself some hardwood pallets there always free and burn hot ...if u mix them in it should help ... but heres a little comparison ...


pines btus /cord 12.0-12.8 million

poplar 12.5

maple (reds or softs) 18.6
maple (sugars or hard 21.3
oak red 21.3
oak white 22.7
black locust 24.7

[fred]

and remember half the btu's is more than twice the boil time and alot darker syrup

[brookledge]

And another big factor with raw sap is the sugar content. On my 3X12 I average 140 GPM and with 2.5% sap I make 4 gal per hour But as the sap drops to 2% then my production drops to 3.25GPH and usually at the end of the season I'm averaging 3GPH.
I usually burn a cord every 6-7 hrs depending on the type of wood. So with higher sugar content sap I'm getting about 25-27 gallons per cord and with 2% sap I get about 18-20 gallons per cord
Keith

[Amber Gold]

I'd be using a 2-2.5' wide evap and either 6-8' long. The pine will be cut and split this summer so it'll be good and dry for next season.

Peacemaker. I've seen that chart before. It's pretty handy if you’re heating with wood. Growing up I always thought that oak was better, just never realized by how much. Now when I order grapple loads of wood I try to get a full load of oak.

It looks like I’d be able to reduce the amount of wood by 1/3 to 1/2 if I switched to hardwood, but when pine is free it sounds much better. I burned pallets last year, but I thought it was a lot of work to dismantle them by hand. People that burn pallets are they breaking them up by machine and just taking what they get? It also seems like you would need a lot of pallets to get the amount of wood I’d need. If I figure 15 gal of syrup per chord of wood I think I’d be looking at about 4-6 chord.

Fred, why would the boil times be that much longer? Granted the BTU's are half as much, but the wood just burns quicker so you have to load more often, which would reduce the boil a little, but by that much?

[maplecrest]

there are 140000 btu,s in a gallon of fuel oil. so to figure the amount of oil needed depends on the amount going under the pan per hour and the percent of the sap going into the arch. before i bought my r/o i looked at wood chips. pellets, used oil, veg oil. corn has your largest btu,s. i talked to a guy from the midwest who wanted to design a set up for maple but i went with the r/o instead.you would have to have the burners, augers and a grain bin to hold the corn. but then the price of a bushel of corn was low. do not know what a local price is at this time. but more farmers are buying dryers and selling it as feed or heating fuel. i would think that a gasafire wood chip unit could be converted to burn pellets or corn as well as chips.i went to canada and saw a wood chip evap back in the 80,s. sounded like a jet engine when running turned on and off with the flic of a switch. the only thing i did not like about it is the chips have to be clean. no leaves, pine needles ect. or plug the sifter at the bottom of the hopper to make the gas that ignites to make the heat. if you can get a good supply of CLEAN chips seems to me if you did not want an r/o that is the way to go

[Jeff E]

I am wondering about the aspect of how the wood burns as well. I have had terrific boils burning slabbed aspen. Agreed, I have to load perhaps almost twice as often, but I get great boil back in my flue pan.

If using hard wood, I can get great boils as well, but only with 2 year old split and covered wood. The pine and aspen burn with more flame than hardwood.

Some of my favorite woods to go to the arch pile are soft maple, ash, aspen (popple), red oak. The boiler for the house get white oak, hickory, and junk wood because it burns any wood. I had some bad experience with pine in the boiler (flashing when the door would open, our when the forced draft kicked on, blowing my chimney rain cover 75' in the air!

One point of clarification. All of us are talking about full cords (4x4x8) when you are saying 20 gallons per cord. Correct?

[peacemaker]

amber gold it is alot of pallets i burned around 300 this year and made 45 gals maybe 50 gals its not alot of work to cut them up i can with a chain saw and chop saw cut 20 or more in a hour ...i was out of my precut up palletts the first week of boiling and was hauling 20 a day cutting them gathering and boiling the nice thing about them is u can stack alot of pallet wood up nice and neat and tight ... only down side is the nails and trust plates ... u need to pull them out once a boil but with scarp so high i have 2 garbage cans full of nails ...the other tjing is when u arent rushed for the pallets u can be picky about them i only take hardwood ones and ones with alot of decking on them ... and like fred said using only pine we slow u way down ... think of it like this set your kitcen stove on low set a pot of water and wait for it to boil then set another on another burner on high ... which will boil faster ... u can feed that fire ever 3 seconds and u can make that fire as hot as a oak ... and pine doesnt build hot coals like oak and thats wicked important

[peacemaker]

i think as important as the type of wood and seasoning is how you build your fire ... and your correct jeff one thing about oak is as far as i found i let oak season 2 years

i seem to burn mostly ash maple oak as my hardwoods and popplar as my soft the nice thing about popplar is its easy to split into wrist size pieces it burns hot and fast with no cresote build up on the pans

[Justin Turco]

I have to weigh in here as well. NOW,...I might be wrong. But I am of the belief that burning pine does not increase the boil time. If anything, it shortens it, because it burns so fast and hot. The only problem is how long it lasts in the firebox. I suggest that If you burned pine for a minute you'll get the same # of BTU from it as you would if you burned oak for a minute. It's just that after the minute is up, the pine is gone and the oak still has something left to burn. That is why you get more BTU from the oak. How does that sound?

Every time I ever went to cut up pallets, I ended up getting wacked by a flying piece of debri. But they sure DO make heat. Wear your safety glasses and move your new truck somewhere else!

[peacemaker]

that is true about pallets my one friend laughs cause i t put on my helmet and my chaps to cut pallets .. i dont stand mine up two often i lay them down and cut the decks out then take the 2x materila to my old chop saw and cut them there this way i can see the nails better i put in one of those yellow dewalt skill saw blades and if i have to wack a nail the satand up to it
cause your gonna hit a nail your just gonna

[Amber Gold]

I also always thought that you get quick hot fires from pines because of the pitch which helps it to catch quicker and hotter. I'd think the only downsides would more wood to cut/split/stack and more frequent firings. Also if you're not getting the coal base then everything will cool down more quickly.

[TapME]

OK, I'll say my part. Justin you are right pound for pound wood has the same btu's, the volume will be different. Yes were any safety stuff that you have when cutting up pallets, the debris does tend to fly. The best fires that I have had have been with a mix of both hard and soft woods and the draft door wide open, boy does that give some heat. My motto is burn what you have that is available and is cheap, it helps to keep the cost down and will clean up the yard and the woods.

PS you should see royalmaple make short work of pallets.

[halfast tapper]

another species of wood that burns well is Telephone pole. Ha Ha . Talk about a fast boil , can't even keep it in the pans!

[brookledge]

Justin
You are correct
Keith

[Jeff E]

Halfast, don't the wires get caught in you ash grates?

Seriously, what is the experience with force draft arches with different wood types, and is it really worth the effort to put one together in a non-airtight arch?

[fred]

is it really worth the effort to put one together in a non-airtight arch?

yes it is. with blowers the air comes underneath the fire and puts it on the pans where the air coming though the doors pushes most of the heat to the back pan even if the doors are pretty tight

[brookledge]

As Fred said the blowers really enhance the boiling and increase the efficiency. With out a blower the wood that is burning 3-4 feet in the fire box goes directly towards the flue pan and never heats the syrup pan. But with the blower under the flue pan blowing forward the flame has to come forward under the syruip pan and then turn towards the back and out.
Keith