Preheaters

[steve J]

I really have not seen other people evaporators and set ups. I been learning as I go. currently my 2x3 has a pan with a faucet that sits on the back of the main 2x3 pan. Condensation builds up on botton of this preheater and drips back into the pan. What other types of preheaters are there?

[RileySugarbush]

The last thing you want is condensate dripping back into the pan. If possible, lift and tilt your preheater and shift it so that the drip fall outside your evaporator.

There are many types of preheaters trying to take advantage of waste heat, either in the steam or stack. Keep looking in these forums and you will learn all about them.

With all that said, the preheater is probably not the best place to spend your optimizing efforts. If you have near freezing sap and an almost perfect preheater, you might get 12% or 15% increase in evaporation. More typical results are much less.

By all means use one, and make sure it doesn't drip back into your pan, but if you want to make big strides in rate of evaporation, look at your firebox, draft, fuel, etc. Much more gains to be made there.

[brookledge]

Like John said you really need to stop the condensation dripping back in the pan. The energy recovered in the steam that is heating the sap in the pre heat pan is being lost due to the fact that the water evaporated drips back into the pan netting you nothing.
What would work for you is to raise the preheating pan and make another pan that collects the condensation or tilt the preheater so the condensation runs out the side
Keith

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

All the condensation dripping back into the pan is going to make darker syrup more than likely too.

[WF MASON]

Preheating the sap before it enters the preheater box is a positive thing someone can do also, many have told me they do this on propane , it also increases the gph overall of course.

[maplemark]

this year I'm going to put the preheater on the side , not directly over the back pan. I'm going to slope the hood so the steam goes out one side , put the preheater in a box on the side , catch the condensation in the side box and vent it straight up from there. I did that years ago and it worked great

[adk1]

I have seen some images of the sap lines coming into the sugarhouse and then running down the side of the exhaust stack (copper lines) then into the pre-heater. I have however heard that this copper tubing might get too hot and scortch the sap?
I guess the simplest way to reduce the condensation would be to pre-heat using propane the sap, then dump into preheater. I would expect that if the sap in teh preheater is hot enough then the evap coming off the main pans would not condense on it? Is this logical?

[brookledge]

You could use propane but the intent of preheaters is to use steam which is basicly free heat to warm the incoming sap. If you use propane that will cost a lot of $. Those of you that have small set ups will be better off doing something like maplemark did.
Keith

[KenWP]

I have seen some images of the sap lines coming into the sugarhouse and then running down the side of the exhaust stack (copper lines) then into the pre-heater. I have however heard that this copper tubing might get too hot and scortch the sap?
I guess the simplest way to reduce the condensation would be to pre-heat using propane the sap, then dump into preheater. I would expect that if the sap in teh preheater is hot enough then the evap coming off the main pans would not condense on it? Is this logical?

It's a old wives tale that the sap could scorch in the copper tube around the stack. Just dosn't happen. I used 7/16 this year instead of the little stuff and it worked great to get the sap tempered. I did have it set up to run water through when i ran out of sap also but that is mostly so that I don't melt the solder off the fittings. When you shut down for the night and close the draft it cools the stack down real quick also.
I had to keep from laughing when one fellow was talking about trying to unwind the copper tube while it was hot after he ran out of sap. I last year had it set up so I just blew through the tube to clear it and let it get hot as theres no way it can get hot enough to melt copper anyways.

[UncleGilly]

Ken: do you have a picture of your stack pre-heater?

[maple flats]

Look up member "Johnny Cuervo". He has pictures of a very good preheater using the stack and soft copper.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

Look up member "Johnny Cuervo". He has pictures of a very good preheater using the stack and soft copper.
is that Jose's brother? I met Jose a few times, he beat me down like a red headed step child, so i stopped picking him up at the liquer store:lol: