looking for ideas for making a cream machine

[maplefrank]

any good ideas???? i have some thoughts , but would like to hear from someone who has made one. what do you use for a pan???

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

We had a local metal fabricator build us a pan when the old one had to be replaced. Had our machine made 40 years ago by a local handyman. Made a belt driven turntable with stationary paddles clamped to a bar across the top of the pan. Our paddles are hard maple.

[maple flats]

look in the maple producers manual, there is good picture of a homemade unit.

[twobears1224]

i use a factory built cream machine with paddles..but,after seeing the ones with a pump i,ll be building one of those.
matter of fact i bought some stainless tubing for it over the weekend.they use a bronze gear pump to move the thickened syrup until it turns into cream.the cream i tasted come out very nice..and it was much smoother then mine.
it,s pretty much just a gear pump with a funnel on top of it to hold the syrup.on the outlet end theres a T with a valve on the bottom to fill your containers and on top there,s stainless steel tubing running back up to the top of the funnel.the tubing is milk pipeline.it,s all clamped together so you can clean it,

delbert

[Bucket Head]

I'm with Two Bears. The new style (gear pump) will be easier to do. I think I will go that route too. The gear pump needs to turn slow- 175 rpm is what the one I saw turned at.

Steve

[lpakiz]

Is this the same (Oberdorfer?) gear pump used in filter presses?

[twobears1224]

yes it,s the same gear pump.

delbert

[maplefrank]

only seen these in the catolog.....trying to find a better pic.never understood how they worked

[Sugarmaker]

M Frank,
I just built a low cost gear machine this season and broke it on the first run.:( Lets call that the prototype version:) Broke one of the gears up on the small pump. When the gear is replaced I am pretty sure it is going to work OK. It made some very nice cream before it broke. ( I was switching gears on the drive head and the shock broke the non metallic gear.
I am using a existing motor as the drive system. Rpm is variable but in the in the 60 to 100 range.
I need to take some pictures and start a thread. I would agree that a gear machine may be the way to go. One of the things I like about the concept of a gear machine is that you can fill the containers direct from a port rather than having to scoop out the cream and manually fill the containers.

PM me if you want?

Regards,
Chris

[Dennis H.]

if you want to see one goto the Maple Guys web site and look up the maple cream machine there is a video that show it running. There are no covers on it so you can see te motor and gearpump.

Maple Cream Machine (http://www.mapleguys.com/index.php?item=343&ret=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mapleguys.com%2Findex.php%3Fp age%3D1%26category%3D20)

It looks like the motor is a one piece motor gear reducer that is connected to the gearpump by a lovejoy coupling. Not sure what output rpms the motor is running at though

Very simple. If I ever find that I have a maple cream market I will have to throw together a maple cream machine.

[Bucket Head]

The gear pump cream machine I looked at had an electric motor that turned at 175rpm. It was on the motor I.D. plate/tag. It was a gear reduction type motor, but you could gear down a standard motor if you had to- just like the homemade paddle type units that are out there.

Steve

[maplefrank]

can't watch the video, dial-up just doesn't work with videos..........

[TF Maple]

can't watch the video, dial-up just doesn't work with videos..........

Even with high speed internet it can take a little time to load a video so it runs smoothly. Just start another tab in your web browser and let the video load on that tab while you read posts on Mapletrader on the other tab. Then after the video is loaded you should be able to watch it. If you don't have tabs in your web browser then open a second web browser window and let the video load on that one while you read Mapletrader posts on the other one. Hope I explained that so it makes sense.

[maplefrank]

i let it load all night long..and it still did'nt load.....

[maplefrank]

would anyone have pics of the machine they made?????

[gearpump]

Here are some pics of our D&G gear style pump. The motor speed is 88rpm witha 20:1 gear ratio.

[Bucket Head]

Thats the motor speed? Or is that the pump speed after the elec. motor is geared down by a 20:1 reduction?

Steve

[maplefrank]

thanks for the pics.........

[gearpump]

The 88 rpm is after the gear reduction. With a 20:1 ratio I would assume the motor speed is around 1750 rpm. Our machine is real simple to use and makes great maple cream as long as you get the syrup at the right temp. 1 degree to hot and it ends up making concrete in the pump and the pipes which is a real trick to get out. We usually go 22 degress above the boiling point. Another point to remember is to put a very small batch thru the pump when it is new. The grease from the new pump does not taste good and we ended up making a couple of pounds of "Exon" cream on the first run.

[Bucket Head]

Gearpump,

Is there an information plate/tag on the side of your elec. motor? If so, the r.p.m. will be listed there. The one I looked at said 175 where the rpm was listed. However, maybe I missed the "0" at the end or the zero did'nt get printed on the tag? Your math makes sense. I was thinking that there was no way the thing would work with 20:1 on only 175 rpm! You could hand-crank the pump quicker!!

Steve

[802maple]

When getting a new machne, I always run 3 or 4 gallons of boiling hot water thru it and that should get rid of any grease.

Also if you make it a little heavy just add some syrup to it until you get it to the density that you want it before you package it and you won't have as hard a time getting it out of the tubes. Also when I get done, I run boiling hot syrup thru the machine machine until it pretty much clreans the tubes out and then I save that for the next batch. That way there is hardly any waste.

[lew]

I see there are 2 different rpms. Is one for 1/2 pump and one for the inch pump? Or is there a difference in the quality of the cream? I am building a 1 inch machine but want the appropriate rpms.

[Shaun]

Has anyone had success building one of these machines. If you already have a pump for a filter press it does not seem like you can go wrong, being that a spare is on hand.