Auto Draw Off Plugging

[Snow Hill Farm]

Has anyone else dealt with small burnt pieces occasionally plugging the outlet of the auto draw off? I was thinking of placing a small piece of wire mesh in the outlet of the draw off box. It doesn't happen often and it's caused by splashing from the syrup pan onto the pre-heater hood and top of syrup pan(which makes the small burnt flakes that eventually fall off). Any ideas?

[maplwrks]

I Think If You Do That, You'll Be Asking For A Burnt Pan! The Flakes Will Clog The Screen And Shut Off The Flow OUT OF The Pan. Also- If You Are Getting These Flakes From The Side Of The Pan, I Would Try Defoaming My Back Pan A Little More. This Will Keep The Foam Down In The Front Pan Which Is Causing Your Flaking.

[Haynes Forest Products]

I have the same problem but its the sugar sand that flakes off the bottom of the finish pan. I will get it bad at the end of the day after a good day of boiling. With the drain box on the evaperator it settles there. Dont put a screen in it will make it worse. go with bigger drawoff pipe and valve.

[Snow Hill Farm]

Just to clarify, the problem is right where the opening in the auto draw off is. When the temp. drops and the sensor tells the valve to close it sometimes remains partially open because of a flake of burnt stuff. I'm pretty careful about keeping an eye on it and it's more of an annoyance than anything. Another idea I heard is some sort of splash guard at the back of the syrup pan angled toward the front to stop liquid from reaching (splashing) the hood over the flue pan.

[ennismaple]

We've got a shutoff valve between the pan and the auto runoff that we'll turn off when that happens. We manually open the auto runoff and put a thin brush into the end to get the flake out. Reset the auto runoff, open the valve and you're back in business.