Hood sizes.

[briduhunt]

I have been looking at many of your hoods on your evaporators from the different sites. I have seen hoods that cover the entire rigs and some that cover the back pan and have the syrup pan open. I can see why one might want to have the syrup pan open so you could watch it very carefully but not sure which would work best for my rig. I have a 2x6 drop flue Leader with a top pan feed with float to control the levels. I will want to be able to check the floats system every so often and I want to be able to see the syrup pan also. I am considering having a hood with drop down hinged panels so I can see inside with out lifting the entire unit. My questions is what is better full hood or partical hood with syrup pan exposed. Not sure of the pro's and cons. Any input would be helpful.

[brookledge]

Brian
First you need to determine what your objectives are. Are you looking for a pre heater? Are you looking to only capture the steam to remove it from your building?
If you want a preheater or might someday then you need a hood for the flue pan to contain the steam long enough to warm the cold sap up to 180-200 or so. Probably the majority of people with hood just have it on the flue pan and use a pre-heater.
As for the syrup pan. I would not recommend having a hood directly on the pan. However some will hang one that is oversized a little above the syrup pan. Having the ability to constantly watch the syrup pan is important to me.
Some use hoods because of the building they are in is not set up to adequately remove steam so a hood is needed.
I think if you are looking at a preheater then go with a hood on the flue pan and leave the syrup pan alone.
Keith

[RileySugarbush]

I think you will find lots of opinions on this. Here is mine:

I have a 2x6 with a hood only over the flue pan. I love the sight of the syrup pan and the big clouds running up to the cupola. It's part of the fun for us.

The majority of the evaporation is from the sap pan, so the hood is a great thing. We would be standing in cloud without it. Plus the simple preheater helps a bit with rate and gives us lots of clean hot water, which is good since we don't have running water at sugarhouse. We have hinged doors on our flue pan. Tough to see much in there, but it's impressive to open it up for visitors and that is where we introduce the defoamer. We use a little squirt of Pam.

[Haynes Forest Products]

I would go with the full hood over the flue pan and a raised hood over the syrup pans. I love the sight of the syrup pans at full boil and of course the smell so keep it open. I have 2 doors,lids,covers what ever you call them on each side for viewing and defoming. They are simple and have a small angle bracket that is pop riveted on the inside to hold them over the hole simple and easy to do. Wooden drawer pulls and you wont burn the fingers.

[Russell Lampron]

I also have a 2x6 and have a hood with preheater on the flue pan. My doors slide which makes it easy to defoam and to see what is going on inside the pan. You can see pictures of it in my photobucket sugar house pics section.

[Sugarmaker]

briduhunt
Just be careful reaching into the hood to adjust your float, steam will scald! I do know a guy that runs a Leader float system under his hood with a preheater (3 x 8 rig). I think he also has a external valve to control sap flow too. So he doesn't have to reach in very often. He has sliding doors on an aluminum hood.
We have hinged doors on our homemade SST hood. We do have a preheater too. I don't defoam through the doors anymore. I defoam in the external box of the back pan near where we draw off. Saves opening the door and seems to work just as well.
Chris

[tapper]

briduhunt,
I had that same exact evaporator for 10 years. I made a hood to cover the flue pan and had sliding doors toward the front to give me access to the float and float box. I was able to switch sides with the float and add defoamer without removing the hood. With a single 6" stack into the cupola it removed 75% of the steam from the sugar house.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Remember its the steam that you cant see that hurts the most

[Uncle Tucker]

I have a Leader Pleasure Model with the float in the pan. I had a hood built to cover just the flues. The best of both worlds, I can change directions and have a preheater. You can see picturies in my signature.

[Sugarmaker]

Tucker,
Nice pictures of your sugarhouse. I see a lot of pride built into it.

Regards,
Chris