Bucket Of Sap For Emergency

[tyrod2]

I was cooking yesterday and every thing was going fine. Boy the steam was really rolling out of the sugerhouse. I just fired up the arch when I noticed the steam was going down. I walked around to the side of my evaporator,looked in and saw the top of my flues. No sap. I touched my float and it droped down it was stuck and it started to fill but no fast enough. I reached for my bucket of sap.oops I forgot to fill it. I ran out to my holding tank and got a bucket full pored it in to my flue pan just in time. MAN it scared me to death .That bucket of sap is a must do not forget It know I wont again.I am to old to be running like that.

[3% Solution]

tyrod2,
Yup, got a pipe and valve over the syrup pan.
Folks ask what that is and I tell them "It's the OH CRAP valve."
Then I have to explain.
Have a fun filled season.

Dave

[Big maple]

We always have at least two buckets waiting for the next emergency and it has saved our butts so many times it's not funny. They are a very handy thing to have when the need arises.

[jrthe3]

i alway have the garden hose turned on and laying next to the rig ready for anything

[brookledge]

If you are ever contemplating an auto draw off make sure you get a low level alarm with it. If you should ever ruin a pan the cost to replace it will be more than the auto draw off.
But otherwise I agree keep a pail full near by.
Keith

[Sugarmaker]

Yup, Already used the bucket of sap once this year. I didn't try to save the syrup this time either. I dumped in the front where I though it was getting low and kept right on boiling. Found out my overflow drain on the top of the preheater was not open enough. I had closed it thinking it was running to big of a stream. Well I was wrong and it air locked the float box. Opened the valve on the preheater and did not have a problem after that. Morel of the story: Keep watching.
And I did buy the Marcland with the alarm. I did have it go off once and we did need sap NOW!

Chris

[Bucket Head]

What did the float get stuck or caught on?

I know a guy who had an auto draw off not open (stuck shut, did not clean out) and he burned his pan up. He left the room for a minute, and came back to see flames licking the front of his aluminum hood. The bottom and partitions were in the firebox, and as you can imagine, the aluminum did'nt like the flames either.

Everyone needs a Plan B for pan filling in an emergency.

In addition to the feed/preheater/floatbox line, I have a separate line from the feed tank to the flue pan. On the syrup pan, I always have a line coming from the flue pan to the syrup pan, on the opposit side of where I'm drawing off. When I switch sides, the emergency fill line gets switched also. The emergency fill line always enters the pan where the syrup is being drawn off. Thats where your going to have a problem first if your level gets too low.

You can see these lines in the photos of my evaporator. The flue feed is coming off the bottom of the feed tank (barrel) and entering the rear corner of the flue pan. The small copper pipe going from the flue to the front/side of the syrup pan is the line for that pan.

Steve

[Bucket Head]

Correction. The syrup pan emergency fill line is always opposit the side where the float and incoming sap is. As you can see in the photo.

My aplologies for any confusion.

Steve

[jason grossman]

I am like steve and dave, i have a large yellow oh crap valve, thankfully i have never had to use it but it is 2" straight from the feed tank! years ago when we still had a 2x6 the oh crap bucket was always there and it got used a couple of times!!

[Haynes Forest Products]

I have two garden hoses each corner of the evaperator room spray nozzels at the ready and have used them. You dont want to be between me and the off switch when the (*(&^%$ hits the the wall.

[danno]

My toughest times are always at the begiining of the season when it's still COLD. Always seems to have incoming sap lines freezing up - either head tank to evap. line or more often, bulk tank to head tank.

At 5 degrees, those lines freeze in a hurry.

Lesson No. 1 - do not start fire in evaporator unitl all lines are thawed. I've got a black piece of electrical tape wrapped around the site guage for my flue pan. If the sap gets below that tape, I've only got about a 1/4" of sap above my flues. I hate running that propane torch on my copper feed lines while watching the sap flirt with that tape. A bucket of sap is not gonna buy me much time and ofcourse the garden hose - frozen solid. Yikes!

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Danno,

Why not wrap some heat tape around the lines and only plug it in when it is below freezing and you are boiling. Cheap insurance!

Brandon

[mfchef54]

the emergency bucket of sap saved me the other night when I couldn't find the defoamer.

[stevepipkin]

Bless the extra bucket of sap. It has already saved me once this season.

[Bradenfish]

I'm in the middle of drawing off and notice my floats not letting sap in. I ran outside and yelled for my firewood haulers. We ran with 5 gal buckets full of water. It was about 15 degrees and my feed line got chunks of ice in it. I bout had to change my pants after that! ALWAYS KEEP FULL BUCKETS HANDY!!

[Jerome]

Never had a bucket handy and never had a problem, now that I have read this I'll always have one handy cause sure enough I'll have a problem this year.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Best insurance is to run the pans 1.5 to 2 inches deep. Syrup temps don't spike up and you get nice steady draws. I drew for 30 minutes yesterday continuously and drew off probably 1.5 gallons of syrup in 30 minutes and I am boiling sap around 1.8 percent sugar content. I am over 40+ gallons of light syrup in 3 weeks so far running these depths in the evaporator and have boiled 2200 gallons of sap total in 4 seperate boils. Maybe the syrup would be a lighter light running the pans 1 inch or less, but I have boiled at those levels for too many years and they can keep them. I don't see any difference in evaporation rates between 1" or less than 1.5 to 2 inches on MY evaporator, but I can't say that will be the case for someone else's evaporator.

[Bradenfish]

WVM How do yo draw continuosly for 30 minutes? Do you start drawing at 7 degrees over? The way its been going for me so far it seems like that if i tried to draw that slow the temp would get too high. Ive been drawing 1 to 2 gal at a time! First year with evap trying to learn!