Getting ready

minehart,
Missed you at the Lake Erie Maple Expo (LEME) Nov 10 2018 in Albion Pa 16401. See you next year! Good luck with your season.
Regards,
Chris

I did a test boil today on my Mason 2x4 XL inside my new 10'x12' sap shack. I have a 2'x4' cuppola, a door on either side of the shack, and 3 windows. When the pan came up to a full rolling boil I had steam floor to roof peak and you could not see to the other side of the building. That was with the doors and windows open. Is possible water produces more steam? I think I might have a problem.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/vZj2hHkXpKSBJqJFA

Not enough difference to see. A hood will correct that. However sometimes weather conditions do make it much worse than others.
I made my first 3 hoods, on 3 different evaporators, a 2x3, a 2x6 and a 3x8 (with it's initial set of pans). Then when I bought new pans the manufacturer of the pans had a demo hood that had some very minor dents on one side and they gave me a deal I could not pass up. I had planned to make a new set of hoods but their price saved me the time and cost of materials to make it. Besides, their's is nicer but no more functional. The 3 I made, 2 were out of aluminum flashing the third was made from 3x8' sheets of aluminum and all used 1x1x1 aluminum channel for the gutter, mitered and welded at the corners. For that part I used aluminum rod that uses a propane or Mapp gas torch. I bought that at TSC.

As Dave said weather conditions can cause that. You also need to boil for a while to get it too draft the steam out. Once the evaporator and Stacy warm up it usually clears up.

Over the last two weeks ran 2600+ feet of mains including a high rise vacuum line over the town road. Purchased 2 new tanks, that will be here mid January. Putting a new stainless tank in a pump house that needs to be built in the next few weeks. Before the season starts I need to run about 500 new taps worth of sap line. Loving every minute of it.

Tombaisley, you stated that your cupola is 2'x4' but what size are they openings?. I believe that I read that the openings need to be the same area as your evaporator.

Yesterday was a very humid day and the pressure was about right for the steam to just hang around and fill the shack. Dave is right, a hood would solve that. I have never seen one but I have heard that some have made hoods with plastic. Maybe do a search.

Isn't getting ready for the season just as much fun as making the syrup!!! Getting ready just costs more.

Plasic indeed. On a summer sugar house tour maybe 12-13 years ago, we visited one sugar house that had several blue and a few red ribbons hanging on one wall from the New York State Fair syrup competition. That sugar house looked crude. It had a dirt floor and the only equipment in it was a large filter press. I believe it was a single full bank 10" unit. He had a hood made out of furring strips and covered by clear poly. It hung from the ceiling and came down a few inches outside the pans. It hung about 8-10" below the top of the pans. On each side he had a way to raise roughly 2' of the bottom so he could clean the pans. His evaporator was a 4x14, but he had no RO. He boiled about 3500-4000 on vacuum taps on that, and they all flowed to the sugarhouse to his head tank. I don't recall how he protected the poly by the stack. I can't ask him either, he was also a dairy farmer and he got fed up with it, sold everything and moved to the Rockies and became a guide.

Tom I also have a mason 2x4 with a blower. Although I have swapped my pan for a Leader supreme pan. My opening in cupola is 2x4 and I have the same issue. What I have found is if I leave the door in front of my shack open 3 to 4 inches that the cold air coming in drives the steam up into the cupola and out. My shack is 10x16 so I am a bit bigger. My supreme pan was new for the last week of the season last year. And my steam issue seem to be less even though I was evaporating at a much faster rater than with the Mason pan. I cant explain that.

A combination of humidity, two different temperatures at the same location and barometric pressure is what causes steam to linger in your sugar shack. It is the same combination that makes fog stay around. You can't change any of those variables unless you make the reaction to happen somewhere else. The door being open has the same force as the draft created by the pipe on top of the hood, it just moves the fog to a more appropriate location. I haven't tried it but I think a section of piping and a whirlybird on top would work too.

Today i added a 2'x2' adjustable vent at floor level, right next to the evaporator, I also added a 2'x16" "door" in the gable peak. I did another test boil today and for the first hour I had steam everywhere floor to ceiling, As the the shack started to warm up inside the steam issue improved markedly. After 2 hours i could stand and my head was not in steam. Now I need to replace the wood i burnt, and get my sap collecting equipment in order.