Pre-heater ballast

[Clan Delaney]

Get ready for another one of my crazy ideas....

I'm calling it a pre-heater ballast. It's just a pot of regular water that sits in my pre-heater pan. It stores up heat, and when I add ice cold sap, it transfers that heat.

So far, it's worked amazingly. Before, adding cold sap would make everything tepid. Now, it gets much warmer, much quicker. That may have something to do with the smaller volume of actual sap in the pre-heater.

[Haynes Forest Products]

I see another spread sheet full of info:o I want good records and out comes.

[KenWP]

You coiuld also have a division and fill either side and do the same thing. Basically what your doing is keeping a pot of water warm that has no use but to take up space. Now if you were smart use a pot of sap instead so that you can boil it instead of dumping it out.

[RileySugarbush]

You could just put a big rock in there as well!

[KenWP]

hell might as well get a big peice of food grade copper.

[Peepers]

That makes sense Delaney - less cold sap combined with lots more hot surface area to heat the cold sap and the hot sap. I like the block of copper idea also but the rock would be cheaper. I wonder if anyone sells FDA approved food-safe rocks? :D

Using sap instead of water in the pot makes a lot of sense too, then at the end of the day the hot pot of sap goes into the evap.

Might want to put a cover on the pot (dunno if you removed for the pic) to keep it hotter.

[Haynes Forest Products]

You mentioned that less sap in the preheater could be the reason and I think that is the reason. Your pulling heat away from the hot sap in the preheater to heat the water. How does sap get to the preheater and then to the main pan? I would mount that pan on the flue pipe and then dribble into the preheater.

[morningstarfarm]

if you're gonna put fluid in that pot...why not fill it with sap? then you can just dump it at the end of the day and boil it....