My setup I want thoughts.

[Farmboy]

I have a half pint evaporator. This will be inside my sugar shack. I bought a 3'X5 ' flat pan for $5 yes I said five dollars. It is tin with a drawoff. I am going to weld some dividers in it. I want to build a cinderblock arch for it outside. This way I will be able to concentrate it on the pan outside then draw it off as needed and boil it down all the way on my half pint. I got the pan from the local sawmill owner. He said if I need a load of slabwood for making syrup he would give me a load if I picked it up. It's nice being a kid that's into agriculture because people give you very good deals on things. I should be able to have both running at the same time because my brother or one of my grandpas can run the one outside while I run the half pint inside. This should have a total evaporation rate of about 36 gallons per hour. What does everyone think about this. The way Im thinking I will be able to put up more taps.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Should work fine without any problems and you should be able to run both of them by yourself without too much problems. Flat pans are a lot easier to control than flued pans. Don't think you will get 36 gph, but I guess it would be possible. I would figure 25 gph maybe 30 gph max, at least for your first year learning this setup.

[KenWP]

I know if I get enough sap I plan on haveing a second pan boiling to if all else have enough sap preheated. I spent a average of 15 hours per gallon of sap last year and I hope to beable to cut that to 5 hours. I will only be able to boil nights and weekends this year so have to cut some kind of cornors.

[PerryW]

If you are just using the pan to preheat and partially concentrate the sap before dumping it in the halfpint, I wouldn't bother welding dividers in it, unless you can do it for real cheap. I suppose the dividers would help keep the sap from intermixing, but they won't increase the evaporation rate.

Stock up on the slabwood when you can. It works great (that's all I burn)

[Farmboy]

I can weld in deviders for nothing I already have some SS and a mig welder so it won't cost me anything. Even 25 gph is better than the halfpint alone. I might start the concrete block arch for the pan today if I have time.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

An advantage to using a flat pan with or better without sections is that you can build a good firebox or even a firepit in the ground and fill it up with wood and come back and check it every 2 to 4 hours and then refill it. You can evaporator off a lot of sap this way and not have to watch it, just check it. I got to the point with mine that I would fill up the pan before I went to bed and put wood in the firebox as I knew how much I needed and it would cook all night. Just make sure you have it in an area where there is no fire danger and start off conservative. I boiled on 4 different size flat pans for a number of years and tried about everything many years ago.

[Farmboy]

I have decided not to put dividers in it and just fill it with sao start a fire and check it every half our or so. If someone else is helping me they will run it all the time. Its going to be about 20' from my sugar shack. once i get the sugar shack roof papaered today I will start preping the area for the block evaporator.

[tessiersfarm]

I ran a 30"x4' flat pan for several years by hanging a feed tank over the pan with a small ball valve to feed the pan. I set the flow with the ball valve at about the same rate as evaporation. I had a 55 gallon drum as a feed tank and I could leave it for 2 or 3 hours at a time with no problems. That was a big change with the new evaporator, no more wandering off as I please.

[3rdgen.maple]

Farmboy just please be careful transfering the hot sap from your outside pan to the inside. Make sure you got a nice clear path to and fro.

[vtsnowedin]

The season is coming up like a freight train so you don't have time this year but I would find a way to heat both pans with one fire. Two fires = two wood supplies= two smokestacks wasting heat. Run the smoke from your primary rig under the secondary pan and use that heat your dumping up the stack now.

[Dill]

Farmboy just please be careful transfering the hot sap from your outside pan to the inside. Make sure you got a nice clear path to and fro.

See if you can find an old stainless surge milker pail. They are really insulated. I've poured hot syrup in mine and covered it and its still warm the next morning.

[Farmboy]

We have a gravel driveway and both the block evapoartor and sugar shack. They will be about 20' from eachother. I will transfer hot sap with milk pailsi have. I have 4 3 gallon milk pails with covers. We milk dairy goats so we babe plenty of ss pails around. After this season I am going to make an arch that will hold bath pans. I just don't have the time before this season. What should I use for the stack on the block evaporator. Also how should I attach it to the arch. I do have 30' of 8" heavy duty stack that is just sitting doing nothing I have pleanty of block too.

[vtsnowedin]

We have a gravel driveway and both the block evapoartor and sugar shack. They will be about 20' from eachother. I will transfer hot sap with milk pailsi have. I have 4 3 gallon milk pails with covers. We milk dairy goats so we babe plenty of ss pails around. After this season I am going to make an arch that will hold bath pans. I just don't have the time before this season. What should I use for the stack on the block evaporator. Also how should I attach it to the arch. I do have 30' of 8" heavy duty stack that is just sitting doing nothing I have pleanty of block too.
You can just mortar in an 8" elbow with a six inch or so piece of stack pipe on it to reach through the block wall. Some block or brick under and behind it to give it plenty of support and flair some rubble and mortar on the inside to funnel the smoke from the full width of your pans into it.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

You can squash the pipe down to about 2" thick where it comes thru the back wall inside the arch so it makes it much wider and it pulls draft more across the back of the arch. Only need to do it on the inside part, the outside will still hold shape good because of all the crimps in the elbow.

[Big_Eddy]

What should I use for the stack on the block evaporator. Also how should I attach it to the arch. I do have 30' of 8" heavy duty stack that is just sitting doing nothing I have pleanty of block too.

What I did was get a plate of 1/4" steel slightly wider than my arch by about 10 inches, hacked an 8" hole in the middle of it, then welded an 8" ring of 1/4x1 1/2" bar stock around the hole. I make my arch 10" longer than the pans, drop the plate across the blocks behind the pans, the bottom of the stack sits in the ring and I hold it all up with 3 guy wires. Works great, cost next to nothing, and took no time to make. At the end of the season, I store the plate with the pans. No messing with mortar, nothing permanent (on the driveway), and you just dry set solid blocks, no messing with holes or elbows or mortar. I use solid blocks - I get some cracking so at the end of each season I discard the worst ones, and each spring I add a few new ones. Been doing it this way for 20 years so far - this spring was supposed to be the year of the new evaporator - but doesn't look like I'll be done in time.