cross flow pans

[red maples]

so I was looking through the bascom's used section of their catalog and it seems there are alot of cross flow pans for sale in there. not that I am looking buy anything but I was just curious guess those ones weren't very good pans by the number of them in there.

[nymapleguy607]

I think there are so many pans listed because the larger evaporators use a series of cross flow pans. I would probably say because lots of small pans would be easier to move than one large pan. Just my opinion though

[Flat47]

It's not that they are bad pans or anything negative like that. Bascoms buys a lot of equipment from all over the place. One of the beauties of cross flow pans is that it's easier to swap them out since they're smaller. So it's easier for producers to swap a pan off of the rig to clean it and maintain grade. Doing that requires at least one extra pan, if not more. So, when people sell their old equipment or trade in for different equipment, there's usually an extra pan or two with it. That's why there are so many cross flow pans around.

[red maples]

ah ha! thanks, that makes sense!!

[802maple]

Another thing is the big evaporators are easier to sell by the piece as they are becoming dinosaurs and are hard to get rid of.

[Mark]

802 What size wood fired evaporator and RO would you recommend for 20,000 taps?

[maplwrks]

I would go with a 3x12 and 2 2400 gph ROs

[802maple]

I have to pretty much agree with MIke, 3 or 4 by 12 oil fired Thunderbolt and I would go with a 2, 3600 machines though.

[Buffalo Creek Sugar Camp]

With a 4x12, and two 3200 RO's, how would you match the RO output to the evaporator? Would the RO machines be hooked in a series, or would you just run the sap thru both machines, concentrating as far down as possible?

[Dave Y]

Mark,
If you are seriously committed to wood I would buy a 4x14 force 5. I think you would offset the cost with the amount of oil you wouldn't be buying.And then go with you ro's.

[maplwrks]

Jeremy--I would concentrate with both ros', recirculating until I reached my desired %, maybe 15%. I would then switch 1 ro over to concentrating and feeding my evaporator, setting the concetrate output to match my evaporator output. I would let the other ro keep recirculating to remaing sap until done.

[802maple]

I would do exactly as Mike said.
As far wood versus oil in my opinion and most likely only my opinion with 20,000 taps you don't have time to cut wood and have a good system in the woods. Also taking into consideration that you atleast have to have one additional person in the sugarhouse to fire and keep you in wood with that big an operation, where one person can run a sugarhouse with oil, the wood isn't cut for free (ie chainsaw,tractor, woodsplitter and fuel to run all of that).
On terrific year right now I could boil all of the syrup made on a operation like that for around $6000.00 doing it to the way I do it and I have a hard time believing that it could be done much cheaper with wood.

Dave I hope we can agree to disagree on this one.

[Mark]

I am planning on getting another RO, thanks for the advice.
I thought about getting a smaller rig but I already have a 5x14 and lots of extra pans. The woodchip gasifier that I designed is much easier to run than the Force 5 and I think I use less wood. I am going to build a new on for show and was thinking about going smaller but will stick with the size I have. After using it for 9 years I have figured out what parts wear out and want to finalize the design. Thinking of trying to get one of the companys interested in it.
To load wood I just have to turn the conveyor on and this year I burned one load of chips from the sawmill and made 4300 gallons of syrup costing $800 dollars.

[maplwrks]

Mark---That is awesome!!! I think, if I were you, I would just go with the ros and run what you got! I think Jerry would agree that $800 for fuel for the year is about as cheap as it gets....

[Dave Y]

Mark,
Now see you were holding back on some info. If you can make that much syrup for that little of cash out lay I would olny add ro's also. but if you were up grading from a standard arch, well that is a different story.

[Buffalo Creek Sugar Camp]

Mike, seems like that would work pretty well. I have a new 1000gph machine for this year and an older 4x12. I think I will try what you said as far as returning the concentrate to the sap tank. It will take a few trys to figure out what percentage I need it at to start sending it to the feed tank for the evaporator. I was originally going to send it thru the RO one time and see where it ended up, trying to match the concentrate with the evaporator.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Mark In curious How much wood chips are in a load? yards, tons ?. Its a matter of math and if a load is 10 semis then it might make sense. Im having a hard time because there is only so many BTUs in a given piece of wood be it chips or a split rounds.

[802maple]

Yeah I have to agree, for $800, that is cheap. Even with oil prices as they are today about as cheap as I could do it would be around $3000 for that amount of syrup. If you get that second RO you should be able to make a 100 gallons plus per hour on that rig.

[Mark]

A load of chips is one semi van, I don't know how many feet long it is. The chips taper from the back door to the roof about half way in the van and taper a little in the front. I don't know the pounds but have been told it is about 20 cords.
Here are some pictures of my chip bin, the sugarhouse pictures are of the older building but the bin is the same.
Also I have not used the finisher for a couple years.

http://s1002.photobucket.com/albums/af146/danielsonsugarbush/

[KenWP]

My experience is with what we called hog fuel. It's wood chips that sort of look like the chips hanging around a chopping block but all the same size. They are usually damp also. Burnt them in a kiln for lumber. They burn well once you get them going. Then it is a continual flow of them into the fire. truck load dosn't seem like much untill you scrape a whole load off the middle of a highway with cops swearing at you to get done.

[802maple]

That sounds like one time when I dropped a load of lumber in the middle of Rte. 7 in Middlebury, I just told them to either give me a ticket or help load it back up. That kind of caught them off guard and they shut up.