Lapierre Hurricane Force 5 Boiling Seminar

[chris]

On December 5, 2009 from 1:00pm until 5:00pm, the public is invited to a boiling demonstration/seminar on the new Lapierre Hurricane Force 5 Wood-Fired Evaporator. This is the new high-efficiency wood-fired evaporator that reduces emissions and cuts wood usage by 40%. The demonstration will be here in our sugarhouse in Lyndeborough, NH.

The inventor, Rejean Laverdiere, will be here along with the President of Lapierre, Jeff Goulet, to answer any questions. Pre-registration is required. For more information, you can call me at 1-888-627-5349 or e-mail me at themapleguys@yahoo.com.

Chris

[ennismaple]

Rejean and Jeff are great guys and very knowledgable so take the opportunity to ask them questions!

[chris]

Force 5 boiling seminar update/ specials.

Lapierre will talk about the time frame on new Force 5 orders and what is going on at Lapierre.

I will be offering a FREE temperature monitering/interface system with a Force 5 order that will allow you to monitarr the fire box, stack, and syrup temperature's for peak performance. The interface will also have flow meter option and other custom features.
Chris

[KenWP]

Darn for a minute there I thought that was a free Force Five with the purchase of the interface. Have to get my glasses. I have to check around with the two sugar guys I know up here and see if they know anybody that is getting one.

[ennismaple]

Ken - The Force 5 is free... if you buy a couple of really expensive hats and a vest!

[Amber Gold]

I went to Chris's over the weekend for the demo. The inventor was there. Very nice guy and informative w/out giving away his design. Apparently LaPierre hired him to design a new arch. They have the plans to make it, but not the design. Apparently, if you change one thing, the flame just falls apart...it's a cumulative effect. His design is a comprimise for minimizing wood usage while maximizing evaporation rate.

Very impressive evaporator. 45+ min load times burning wood that was cut/split two months ago and achieved 1600+ firebox temps. I'm not sure what the evaporation rates were because the gauges weren't calibrated, but is estimate to be 200 gph on a 3x12. It had a (2) 2' syrup pan and a 8' flue pan...45% of the evaporation occurs in the syrup pan and 55% in the flue pan which is pretty amazing. This is due to the concentration of temps under the syrup pan. He said he reversed the pans (flue pan in front) and it was too much heat and had sap shooting 1.5 meters above the pans. By getting so much of the evaporation in the syrup pan, it's not entering the syrup pans as sweet, so the the flue pan niter buildup is reduced by 80%.

Another great thing is 40% less wood usage and if it's less than 8 inches you just cut to length, if it's greater than 8" split once. Less wood and the wood you do burn is less work...how can you beat that.

From what I understand the heat isn't generated from burning the wood, it's from burning the gases and it's desirable to have some green wood in the mix. He didn't/wouldn't go into detail on why.

The version that's out now is the 4th version and will not undergo any significant changes. The evaporation rate is what it will be. From here he's going to mount a temperature gauge display for finetuning operation and the final change will be to automate the blowers for optimum performance. First change is anticipated next year and the automation the following year. He's expecting to get another 5% reduction in wood consumption.

Emissions w/ this evaporator are greatly reduced...even burning the green wood. He had the flue gases tested and it burns as clean as propane/natural gas. I forget the burn efficiency, but I think it was around 90%.

I'm having a hard time finding anything bad about this evaporator. It does everything well. I guess the only downfall is it's dependent on the blowers, so if you lose electricity you're not boiling. Also cool down takes a couple of hours because of all the heat that's generated.

He's also applying the same principles to wood boilers...maybe woodstoves. They're in testing phase now. He's getting significant reduction in wood consumption and load times. I think the wood boiler is about the same size as you're standard woodstove and they're loading every couple of days and he's thinking w/ some modifications you might load every 4 days...maybe a week. Seems pretty impressive.

I think I covered everything from his demo. Pretty cool rig and he's currently working on a design for smaller rigs...he's not sure if the concepts transfer to smaller sizes becuase he needs a minimum amount of space for everything to happen.

[Dave Y]

Amber Gold

Are you buying one? and by the way I was there!

[sapmaple]

Josh thanks for the report. I wanted to go myself but just toooo much to do at home in the woods sounds very interesting
I'm looking forward to the report from the guys that use it during sugaring

Kevin

[Steve O'Farrell]

Josh thanks for the report. I wanted to go myself but just toooo much to do at home in the woods sounds very interesting
I'm looking forward to the report from the guys that use it during sugaring

Kevin

Hello,
You will be impressed, because this equipment as surprised us at every step.

On our final tests at the Lapierre sugar camp. We operated a 6 X 16 FORCE 5
with 17 brix sap. The syrup output was around 100 gal. u.s. an hour.
After a couple of hour of this, Rejean and I looked at each other and said,
"If we take the road telling people that, we will be treated as liar".
We and the employees could hardly believe what we observed.

Similar reports were made by the other owners.

Steve O'Farrell
Lapierre equipment

[ennismaple]

When Rejean was firing our 3.5x14 the wood was 2 years old and split very fine. He called it gunpowder because it burned too fast. We needed to turn the primary air waaay down to control the burn. After a while we fired with wetter wood that wasn't split and he achieved the blue/purple flames he wanted because it wasn't gassifying as quickly.

I am definitely looking forward to the reduction in sugar sand that is advertised. The blowers will run off of most generators if you have a power outage. Since my RO won't be concentrating if the power's off I won't be firing long because boiling 2% sap sucks when you're used to 8%+!

[Steve O'Farrell]

The necessity of a emergency generator, is to maintain air circulation through
the secondary air passes. It is necessary to cool the equipment to prevent
structural damage. You don't want to run out of power if you don't have an
emergency power supply you can rely on. After power failure, you have approximately 20 minutes to get hooked up.

Best regards.
Steve O'Farrell
Lapierre equipment

[DS Maple]

I was at the demonstration as well and I'm not sure what was going on, but that thing wasn't boiling anywhere near 200gph. The highest reading I saw on the flowmeter was around 90gph and by looking at the tiny trickle coming into the flue pan I'm left to assume that the reading was correct. One thing is for sure though; efficiency is not linear. Maybe the thing did save wood, but it didn't produce any heat for the building and the electricity needed to run two blowers is not negligible. It would be good for someone converting back to wood from oil because they likely already have some sort of heat source for their sugarhouse, but for someone like me who runs an "inefficient" wood-fired evaporator it would mean putting in an alternative source of heat. A wood stove would require additional wood (offsetting the savings by the Force 5) and time, while some kind of heat by fossil fuels would increase cost. However, I do like the fact that the Force 5 is nice to the environment via its complete combustion of wood fuel. Overall though, I was actually more sold on the machine before I saw it. I noticed some things that really didn't impress me. Now that there are a few of them out there I'll be curious to see and hear how they perform over this coming season.

[ennismaple]

One thing to consider is water doesn't boil as rapidly as syrup. I'll be able to tell you my rate of evaporation vs what was advertised by mid March!

[Bucket Head]

Wow, two hours to cool down?

What would be damaged after the twenty minute "window" runs out?

My advice to owners of this arch is you better have two generators on hand. That way when the first one fails to start or quits for some reason, you don't lose your equipment.

You guys really need to have a Plan B and a Plan C ready to go here. Murphy's Law applies here.

Steve

[Dave Y]

Scott,
I do not think a cord of stove wood could put you in the red time or savings wise with the Force 5. Last year I burned forty full cord of wood. and made 560 of syrup on a 3x12. If my calculations are correct i should be able to make the same amount with 13-14 cord on my 4x14 force 5. that is a great savings. also as Ennis stated ,water and syrup do not boil the same. You must also remember there was no draw-off. I think once we start making syrup on these new rigs you will see some different numbers. As far as the cool down time it is one hour not two.

[Amber Gold]

Dave, wish I had known...would've introduced myself. Were you the dealer from Penn. that was driving back that night? I think there was two of you. It's definitely peaked my interest. They'll either need to make a smaller one or I'll need to get a variance to make my sugar house bigger because I'm within the property line setbacks.

I may have minor errors in my recollection of events.

I asked Chris about the flow rate and the meter hasn't been calibrated. He had just gotten it up and running.

I have to agree w/ Dave, it's a lot cheaper/easier to heat a building w/ a woodstove vs. an evaporator.

With the much higher fire box temperatures than the standard evaporator, the evaporation rate has to be much higher.

I asked about the electicity requirements and it's 15 amps...not sure if it's 110 or 220, but either way it's pretty cheap.

Rajean said he doesn't know how much higher the evaporation rate could go. He said there's a point where boiling sap is unmanageable.

I would think the savings in the amount of wood burned, never mind the labor savings in the wood you are burning, would justify the cost. Not having to split wood into fist sized pieces sounds pretty good. Also if most of your cull wood is 8" or less you leave it be, and you burn green wood...still trying to find something wrong.

[Dave Y]

Josh,
Yea I was the dummy from Pa. I had the lapierre hat on.
I do agree with you, it is hard to find something wrong.

[Steve O'Farrell]

Josh,

The power requirement for a 2 blower Force 5 is approx. 15 amps. at 220 volts.

To give you an idea about the wood consumption. During the sap evaporation tests, using fair quality hard wood stored outside on 1/2 cord skids.
With concentrate brix between 17 & 18, we averaged 100 gal. u.s. of syrup per
hour. The skid of wood (4"X4"X4") would last for 3 hours with reloads about every hour.

Have a nice day.

Steve O'Farrell
Lapierre equipment

[Steve O'Farrell]

I was at the demonstration as well and I'm not sure what was going on, but that thing wasn't boiling anywhere near 200gph. The highest reading I saw on the flowmeter was around 90gph and by looking at the tiny trickle coming into the flue pan I'm left to assume that the reading was correct. One thing is for sure though; efficiency is not linear. Maybe the thing did save wood, but it didn't produce any heat for the building and the electricity needed to run two blowers is not negligible. It would be good for someone converting back to wood from oil because they likely already have some sort of heat source for their sugarhouse, but for someone like me who runs an "inefficient" wood-fired evaporator it would mean putting in an alternative source of heat. A wood stove would require additional wood (offsetting the savings by the Force 5) and time, while some kind of heat by fossil fuels would increase cost. However, I do like the fact that the Force 5 is nice to the environment via its complete combustion of wood fuel. Overall though, I was actually more sold on the machine before I saw it. I noticed some things that really didn't impress me. Now that there are a few of them out there I'll be curious to see and hear how they perform over this coming season.

Scott,
This equipment is the first engineered and tested wood fire evaporator on the market. We didn't build to be a formula one. It is meant to be energy efficient, safe, clean and manageable.

Three of them were in service last spring, all we got were positive comments, from the owners, the operators and the visitors that saw it in action.
So please give it some credits.

Best regards.
Steve O'Farrell

[Dave Y]

Steve,
I am asuming you where boiling on a 6x16.

[Steve O'Farrell]

Steve,
I am asuming you where boiling on a 6x16.

Dave,
I forgot to mention, yes it was a 6 x 16.
Steve O'Farrell

[DS Maple]

I wasn't saying the Force 5 was bad, but rather making the point that nothing is ever as good as advertised. (Lapierre claims firebox temps of 2100 degrees F and the actual readings were down around 1600, maybe 1700. Their same advertisement states that a normal evaporator can achieve 1600 degrees, and this figure is likely reduced as an advertising gimmick.) There's always going to be something, big or small, that is going to take away from the proclaimed efficiency. As far as the evaporation rate is concerned, all math aside, to get 200gph on that evaporator the amount of liquid coming in will have to at least double what I saw at the demonstration. That flow was about the same as what I see between the SteamAway and the flue pan on our 3x12, probably even a little less. Factor in boiling sap instead of water and then draw offs and it will surely go up, but up by 100 gallons? Hopefully I'll be surprised!

[Hop Kiln Road]

Josh - I was there a little earlier, probably around noon. What I thought was most impressive was the 1000 degree temperature difference between the firebox and sensor 12" up the stack. So the firebox was at 1650 and the stack at 650 and the machine wasn't running too hard. My experience, on a 2X6 admittedly, is a stack temp of only 650 won't produce much of a boil in a conventional rig. So I suspect that the over fire turbulance not only forces the gases back into the fire but it also slows down the exhaust velocity of the machine, which in turn allows more heat to be absorbed by the flue pan. And maybe Steve can comment on this, in the larger units isn't it going to ultimately safer and more manageable to have a pressurized vessel and use steam to boil the sap? Bruce

[Steve O'Farrell]

Hi Bruce,
Stack temperature is a factor to be considered for every type of evaporators. We can call it wasted heat. To achieve efficient combustion,
you want to have the right volume of air to get a clean burn and a maximal CO2.
The same principals applies for all source of energy.

By adding primary air, you will increase the combustion rate. Therefore increasing the BTU's in the chamber and by that fact increasing the evaporation and the stack temperature.

On the Force 5, as you already noticed there is big difference in temperature between the combustion chamber and the stack. We make better use of the heat to produce evaporation.

Over induction of air in the chamber will increase the combustion of the wood
and stack temperature to out of control level. you will get out of the maximal efficiency curve. At this point ashes and glowing hot coals will fly out of the stack. witch may be a dangerous fire hazard.
You see no such thing on a Force 5.

About steam.
Steam evaporation is costly and risky.
You really want to know what you are doing when using any type of steam generators. In some region like Quebec, the operator requires to be licensed.
These equipments are subject to scheduled inspections.

Pressure will decrease the evaporation. If you want to evaporate more,it is normally done under vacuum. Like the dairy industry and other food operations. You can evaporate more at much lower temperature. But for maple syrup, it's unique flavor will be lost, and the cost of such equipment is up in the cloud.

I hope this information will be satisfactory to you.

Regards.
Steve O'Farrell
Lapierre equipment

[Steve O'Farrell]

I wasn't saying the Force 5 was bad, but rather making the point that nothing is ever as good as advertised. (Lapierre claims firebox temps of 2100 degrees F and the actual readings were down around 1600, maybe 1700. Their same advertisement states that a normal evaporator can achieve 1600 degrees, and this figure is likely reduced as an advertising gimmick.) There's always going to be something, big or small, that is going to take away from the proclaimed efficiency. As far as the evaporation rate is concerned, all math aside, to get 200gph on that evaporator the amount of liquid coming in will have to at least double what I saw at the demonstration. That flow was about the same as what I see between the SteamAway and the flue pan on our 3x12, probably even a little less. Factor in boiling sap instead of water and then draw offs and it will surely go up, but up by 100 gallons? Hopefully I'll be surprised!

Sorry Scott, but there is no gimmick.
I am sure in time you like others will be impressed.

The 2100 degrees temperature were achieved while we were running test last year. Don't forget the Force 5 has a throttle pedal.. The primary air circuit. Increasing the primary air input, increases the speed of combustion.
Then more BTU'S means higher temperature.

Speaking to Réjean after reading your post, he informed me that in NH. they were burning small logs of ash and pine. This dry and soft wood gets set ablase all at once. To prevent excessive smoking primary air must be reduced to minimum then producing less heat. Force 5 works best with one year old hard wood with a 20% dampness. Logs of 6 to 8 inches in diameter.

A 3X12 ft. evaporator at 200 gal./hr. possibly? But i am not sure you want to process high brix concentrate at that evaporation rate.This is the reason we developed this manageable combustion system beside hoping to reduce the maple syrup carbon trail.

Take care
Steve o'Farrell
Lapierre equipment

[Mark]

I change my mind.

[Brent]

Cost to run the blowers

lets see: 15 amps x 230 volts = 3450 watts or 3.45 KW

around here a kilowatt costs about 6 cents per KW/Hours

That's about 21 cents an hour. Not a factor in the big picture, unless you're running of a genset in which case I'm guessing you need to multiply that by 4 or 5 times. Still a buck an hour is pretty cheap for that performance.

[tuckermtn]

Brent- around here in NH we pay around $.18 per KW hour (thank you seabrook nuke plant) - so 3 times what your paying- but still your point is accurate on cost vs. performance.

[chris]

This is the data I have from the seminar

Boiled three hours and went through around 460 gallons of water using 2 foot wet pine and 2 foot 1 month ash and 2 foot 6 month maple. One thing the flow meter was not calibrated and being a insturment guy the flow readings mean nothing unless it has a calibration stamp and I should of left it off (But it did look cool). The cold float inlet is below the flue level so it is phyisical hard to tell how much sap is coming in to the float boxand flue pan unlike my old Algier and most evaporators where you can see the sap come in and drop into the box. Another thing to keep in mind the last hour of the semiair I had Rejean turn down the 1st and 2nd stage blowers so he could explain to the NHUSDA how the evaporator works this went thus slowing down the evap rate this was done when most guest where on site.

I'm very pleased with the evaporator and being able to add wood every 45 to 60 min like proven that day and longest we went that day was 1 hour and 15 min.
Can't wait for sap
Chris