Drawing off temp increasing

[adk1]

Has anyone had a problem where as your each 219 and start to draw off the temp actually increases? Any thoughts to this? Never happened to us before?

[PerryW]

This sometimes happens on my first draw-off after reversing the flow. Since you are reversing the flow the syrup, syrup can develop in one of the center channels of the pan; so by the time you reach syrup at the draw-off, your are beyond syrup in the center of the pan.

If the temp climbs too much past 219, I will stop the drawoff and grab a dipper or two of sap and pour it into the area of the pan that is beyond syrup to bring it back down; then resume the drawoff.

[johnallin]

As mentioned it usually means that your making syrup in the middle of the pan and as you draw off the stuff in the last channel you then begin to draw this past the thermometer. You should be able to see it coming though as the big circle of bubbles in the middle of the pan is trying to tell you something is happening there..

I've had it happen after the pans are sweetend and between boils the gradient mixes together. If you can't get it out fast enough, pouring sap into the first channel of the syrup pan is a good solution - but I just try to draw and check density as fast as I can and if too heavy make the last draw a bit light to even it out.

[maple flats]

Quite common, especially after reversing flow, but sometimes without reversing. If it happen, just draw faster, BUT make sore to give the float time to respond if you have raised flue and if drop flue just make sure you don't draw so fast the other sections get dangerously shallow. This will give you a long draw. When it happens I draw until it hits +6 and if the draw was real long I go to 1 degree lower still. This will balance the density but most often you will still need to dilute for final density as you bottle it. I prefer this rather than needing to boil extra in the canner. I use distilled water to dilute. I use less than a gallon a season and the convenience is great. You can however choose to dilute with more from the syrup pan that is almost ready. Just mix well and retest density. Add a little at a time. The reason I like the distilled water is that my added diluter is always pure water and based on my reading for density I can get close by doing the math and get it right faster. A gallon of distilled water is less than $1.

[trackerguy]

Happens every time I boil if I just turn on the switch and go. When I boil 9% and just fire without doing anything else, It'll come up 3 degrees during the 1st draw, maybe 2 next draw, then it gradually settles down, after an hour. 1st draw takes 20 min and will be 3 gallons. It's making syrup in the middel pan where the boil is hardest. If I'm not lazy I'll draw off a gallon when it's warming up and then after its boiling hard and I've pulled the plugs I'll gradually pour that gallon back into the syrup pan and it behaves better.

[michiganfarmer]

my 3x12 does that all day long. My temp always goes up during the draw.

[danno]

my 3x12 does that all day long. My temp always goes up during the draw.

Ditto that - always happens on my 3x10. If I'm lucky it only goes up a degree or two, sometimes much higher. I can see it happening, center two dividers make syrup much quicker than my draw off divider. Adding raw sap did not help much.

I did have too much forced air on the center two dividers, but I have reduced that and things have gotten better, but still making syrup in the center two dividers.

[argohauler]

I've seen it happen in a pan where the dividers go lengthways with the evaporator. The fire tends to be hotter in the middle 2 sections. Sometimes it will go up a half degree, sometimes it will spike. If it does that I'll dump it back in. Wood size can affect it, like if you put in big diameter pieces.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I solved this problem several years ago, I started running the syrup pan at least 1.5 inches deep and this takes care of about all spikes unless the pan has a lot of nitre buildup or the sap is very low quality.

[ennismaple]

It's common with our Force 5. If our levels are good and the fire constant it can be only 2 F higher at it's peak and then come back down. We adjust the runoff temp accordingly to average the runoff out to 66.5 Brix. When we've just cleaned the pans the spike can be much more pronounced but can be reduced by keeping the levels a bit low in the front until not long before the runoff to force more sap from the flue pan into the front pan. The worst thing that can happen is to have too much sap in the front when you fire up and get a runoff before new sap comes in from the flue pan - your first runoff can be the entire front pan!