Wood usage

[syrupdreamer]

I have a 2x4 flue pan Leader vermont special that i purchased a month ago, anyone out there know the aproximate wood usage per 10 gallons of finished syrup? I will be burning dry oak mixed with a little soft wood. i do not have a blower but thinking of adding one. thanks

[brookledge]

Depending on the efficiency of your arch plan on 15-25 gallons of syrup per cord. Based on that 2X4 I'd say you will probably be closer to 15.
So if you have a cord of wood you should have no problem making 10 gallons
Keith

[syrupdreamer]

would that be a full cord or face cord?

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Figure on a full cord and you should be ok. Face cord wouldn't be enough.

[Flat47]

What is a "face cord"?

A cord is 128 cubic feet (4'x4'x8').

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

1/3 of a full cord or 16" deep x 4' x 8' unless it is different in different places.

[slammer3364]

We run 18x48 D@G made over 14 gal. last yearon 3 6ft pick up loads just thrown in the bed of the truck:lol:
__________________________
18 x 48 DG
2 Goats
12 Java Chickens
96 taps and looking for more

[brookledge]

flat47
A face cord is like it says you look at the face of the pile. The problem is then you need to describe the length it is cut. A face cord of 16" is not the same as a face cord of 24".
To me a face cord is just another thing to confuse people. When I talk cords it is 128cu ft
Keith

[Frank Ivy]

flat47
A face cord is like it says you look at the face of the pile. The problem is then you need to describe the length it is cut. A face cord of 16" is not the same as a face cord of 24".
To me a face cord is just another thing to confuse people. When I talk cords it is 128cu ft
Keith

A cord is a cord is a cord.

A cord of rounds, unsplit, is equal to 1.5 cords of wood, split large, or 2 cords of wood, split small!

Cord is a horrible measure for wood, but it's the best we got!

What would be ideal would be to know weight and moisture content, because that would give you BTUs.

It'd be possible with a dump truck and a scale and a fairly cheap moisture meter.

[JuniperHillSugar]

The "face cord" has always been confusing to the general public. A friend put it best this way, "Face it, you didn't buy a cord".

128 cu. ft. works best for my operation. There are so many variables, as was said, try to find what works best for your mode of operation and stick with it.

I always assume that I will be burning the chairs in the sugar house before the season is over.

Good Luck.

[Farmboy]

How about a half pint how many gallons of syrup per cord 70% pine 30% oak. How many gallons will 3 cord make? Thanks Farmboy

[Dill]

A cord or a fraction there of is the only legal way to buy and sell firewood.
A face cord, a rick, a pile, a "lot" etc is not. I think that's what flat 47 was getting at.

Not sure with hardwood, but I thought a rule of thumb was 1 cord to 10 gallons? Granted there are hundreds of variables.

[Toblerone]

A cord or a fraction there of is the only legal way to buy and sell firewood.

I had heard this too, but maybe the law varies from state to state. In Ohio, this is the case. This is from Ohio Department of Agriculture Offers Tips for Purchasing Firewood (http://coshocton.osu.edu/announcements/ohio-department-of-agriculture-offers-tips-for-purchasing-firewood):

* Non-packaged firewood must be sold by the cord or by fractions of a cord. One cord, when properly stacked, should be 8 feet long by 4 feet high and 4 feet wide (128 cubic feet).

* It is illegal to sell firewood by any other unit of measurement such as a rick, rack, face cord, or truckload. If a consumer believes that a seller did not comply with these rules and regulations, the person should immediately contact the seller.

[Brian Ryther]

A face cord is aprox 1/3 a full cord. We use face cords in up state NY. A good rule of thumb is a average truck load is a face cord. So we just count truck loads. This year I have brought in 85 truck loads, or 85 face chords. It makes it easy to estimate volume when sugar wood is 48" and fire wood is 18".

[KenWP]

So instead of saying a face cord just call it a third of a cord and your legal. They call a face cord here a cord and a full cord a solid. I almost ordered some wood until I found out just how little I was going to get. They also call a face cord a run. When I bought this place they told me they used 7 runs of hardwood to heat the place. I used almost 9 full cords so they must have used the oil furnace alot also.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

How about a half pint how many gallons of syrup per cord 70% pine 30% oak. How many gallons will 3 cord make? Thanks Farmboy

Never used a half pint, but a 2x3 pan. I would guess 30 gallon of syrup. Maybe some other half pint users can chip in. Been close to 20 years since I used that 2x3 pan.

[Brent]

We had a hard time keeping track of the wood our half pint went through but if the rule of thumb is 15 gal / cord for a 2 x 6 flued evaporator, then I think a half pint would get less than half of that.

The fire box in a half pint is the same size as a 2 x 6 or 2 x 8 and it will eat just as much wood per hour. I think general numbers for half pints are 5 - 6 gallons of sap per hour. In fact because of the low boil rate I think lots of folks, me included, try to enhance it by putting a blower on them. That will give you 25 to 50% increase in gallons per hour but it will double the wood consumption.

[PerryW]

The fire box in a half pint is the same size as a 2 x 6 or 2 x 8 and it will eat just as much wood per hour.

Are you sure this is true? Even if the firebox is the same size, I believe the longer evaporators are designed differently and have a larger stack size to increase draft and get the fire to go further back. I believe the longer evaporators may be slightly more efficient, but they still use more wood per hour than a shorter evaporator of the same width.

[Brent]

I have to admit that I have never measured them exactly but I went from a Leader Half Pint to a Phaneuf 2 x 6 and looked at a few others and the fireboxes are all within a few inches of each other. In fact the Half Pint has vertical wall and most 2 x 6 and 2 x 8 rigs have a narrower base and the wall flares out to the 2' dimension at the top so you can actually put more wood in a half pint. The grate is wider on the Half Pint. The draft doors are all about the same size and you can only pile in wood to the same depth.

The huge difference is that with a blower on the Half Pint I had a dull red glow on the stack and 6 feet up there was a flare coming out of the top of the stack that looked like the afterburner of a jet fighter taking of an aircraft carrier at night. HUGE waste of heat.

With the same blower on the 2 X 6 the stack temp peaked at about 1150 - 1200. The difference is that the heat was being aborbed by the bigger surface area of the pans. I've done the math before and the square inches exposed was something like 8 - 10 times that of a half pint. It's all aobut the surface area exposed to the heat.

[vtsnowedin]

The fire box in a half pint is the same size as a 2 x 6 or 2 x 8 and it will eat just as much wood per hour.

Are you sure this is true? Even if the firebox is the same size, I believe the longer evaporators are designed differently and have a larger stack size to increase draft and get the fire to go further back. I believe the longer evaporators may be slightly more efficient, but they still use more wood per hour than a shorter evaporator of the same width.
Wood per hour would not be the right measure. What matters is how many gallons of sap are evaporated per cord. short rigs with flat pans are going to use several times more wood per gallon evaporated then a long fluepan type rig. Also a blower on a long rig increases combustion temps under the pans but in a short half pint type set up it probably just increases stack temps and wasted heat. Better to let the half pints fire go by the short pan slower to transfer more heat to the pan.

[Brent]

Wood per hour would not be the right measure. What matters is how many gallons of sap are evaporated per cord. short rigs with flat pans are going to use several times more wood per gallon evaporated then a long fluepan type rig. Also a blower on a long rig increases combustion temps under the pans but in a short half pint type set up it probably just increases stack temps and wasted heat. Better to let the half pints fire go by the short pan slower to transfer more heat to the pan.

Yup that's exactly what I was trying to say. The blower on a Half Pint wastes a huge amount of heat ... it passes the pan without transfering much to the sap. I would guess I hit stack temps in the 1300 - 1400 range on the half pint with the blower. The longer pans with flues transfer so much heat that I couldn't get to 1300 in the stack if I wanted to.

[KenWP]

I figure I used around two cords of wood to make 20 gallons. I only had a 18inch by 16 inch pan and I would bet 50% of my heat went out the stack. I am trying to convert to a couple flue pans also in order to use up some of that heat instead of wasteing it. That and not boil day and night for weeks.