My plan 2022/23

Part three, as amazing as things went, there are a few things to work on.

I have to move the pan a 1/4” to the right, I discovered after I started boiling it was barely hanging onto the right edge. That is an easy fix.

My stack last year never remotely got that hot, not even close. When my pan and base stack maker made the base for the base stack he made it different than i expected and the base stack is too close to the pan. I will try and move it a 1/4” more away from the stack, but I am not sure if that will be enough. The pan actually got a little discolored and it burnt some of the sap. I may see if I can weld a small extension piece to the base stack to try and move the pan a little further away from the stack, maybe a half inch more away from it.

I put to boil 110 gallons of sap and you could obviously see the gradient and I thought for sure I would have a draw off, but the thermometer never moved from the water boiling temperature. The weather is turning cold and I will not have another boil for awhile. I had my wife watch the evaporator while I collected today’s sap, so there will be not much sap to start a boil tomorrow, so I will not have a second boil.

I drew off two large potfuls of the densest sap. I may try finishing them. The rest I am draining of into pails, keeping their order and I will let them freeze and will use them to start the next boil, whenever that may be.

The stack was so hot it melted the tarp behind it, which I never expected.

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Holy cow! Your rig shouldn't be running that hot!

Yeah that looks crazy hot. Can you put some of the high temp insulation blanket between the stack and your pan? If you can, move it back and put insulation between them.

I agree with the high temp blanket insulation.

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Originally Posted by DRoseum

Yeah that looks crazy hot. Can you put some of the high temp insulation blanket between the stack and your pan? If you can, move it back and put insulation between them.

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I have some of that insulation, I will do that next time I boil.
As far as running that hot, is that a bad thing or a good thing. Is a good thing that the cinderblock evaporator can get that hot, or a bad thing that it should not?

You don't want your base stack that hot. That's all wasted heat. I believe ideal stqck temperature range is 800 F - 1100 F for forced draft (blower). You are probably well above that.

How hard was your pan boiling with your base that hot?

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Originally Posted by DRoseum

You don't want your base stack that hot. That's all wasted heat. I believe ideal stqck temperature range is 800 F - 1100 F for forced draft (blower). You are probably well above that.

How hard was your pan boiling with your base that hot?

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Vigorously boiling.

I think I know what is going on, it did it last year with my steam pans. All of a sudden the fire takes off and you can hear it roar and the flames are racing across the ramp.

My firebox is two logs deep and I fill it to the bottom of the pan. It is also likely that some of the back row is on the slanted ramp. I think it may take off like that when I put too much wood in it.

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Originally Posted by Swingpure

I put to boil 110 gallons of sap and you could obviously see the gradient and I thought for sure I would have a draw off, but the thermometer never moved from the water boiling temperature.

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That was all raw sap you were boiling, correct? Gary, on my 2x4 my pan doesn't even get sweet until I boil 150 gallons or so. Then, for every 40 gallons of sap I boil I can draw off a gallon of near-syrup. At 110 gallons of sap boiled I think you were still about 80 gallons of sap away from having your first draw off.

Looking good though! Glad it's all coming together.

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Originally Posted by bigschuss

That was all raw sap you were boiling, correct? Gary, on my 2x4 my pan doesn't even get sweet until I boil 150 gallons or so. Then, for every 40 gallons of sap I boil I can draw off a gallon of near-syrup. At 110 gallons of sap boiled I think you were still about 80 gallons of sap away from having your first draw off.

Looking good though! Glad it's all coming together.

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Thanks, that is helpful, and yes it was all raw sap.

I won’t likely have another boil for a week or two depending obviously on the weather. I drew off all of the sap from the pans. I put the first two draw offs in stainless steel pots for possible boiling into syrup, but now I think I will save it with the other sweet and just return it to the pan in the correct order, giving myself the chance to draw syrup sooner the next time I boil.

I was really pleased with the 13 gallons per hour boil rate. (I know that is slow for the professional rigs). Next time I will be more careful with how much wood I will put in it. It will still be to the top of the pan, but I will not push as much back into the firebox, to prevent the super heating of the stack.

Last year with my steam pans, which I cleaned after almost every boil, I sometimes saw a brown plaque on the pan that I assumed was nitre and I would use the white vinegar to clean it.

With this boil at the end, there was a some groupings of sediment in the channels, which I had not seen before with the steam pans. Is that also sugar sand?

(Poor picture as I took it last night holding a flashlight. The sediment was in all four channels)

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