First boil 2011

So for all of you up north I now know what it's all about. Just shoot me now I'm ready to go, life can't get much better. Sure glad I'm "prayed up" at church. This evening we started with about 150 gal of sap, thought I would "sweeten" the pans a bit since I had made them and they hadn't been used yet. took about 2 hours to cook off 100 gal of sap. One thing I learned when you run out of sap bad things happen quickly. So tomorrow I have a little mess to deal with. Scorched a small spot 6" X 12" in the syrup pan befor I could get some water dumped in there. Even though I messed up that batch it was great. Everyone came out and had a great time.

Check out the pictures in my photobucket.

David

http://s742.photobucket.com/albums/x...eb%206%202011/

Here are a few pictures from this evening.

David

Lessons learned:
Can't shut down fire very quick.
Have sap or water on hand
Con the kids into packing in the wood
Watch the stack temp to figure out how and when to add wood
Send someone for food and drinks

nice pictures, beautiful shack! hopefully last nights freeze will give you more maple squeez'ins to boil. hopefully i can stop by and say hi before long. nace

I'm hoping that my shack will be filled with steam next Monday!!!!

afretired i was wondering if you thought you were gaining much from the copper coil going around the stack thinking of doing that myself.Seems like a goog idea.

No, it is a good waste of copper tubing. I thought it was a good idea, but it didn't pan out. When I watch what I am doing and keep the stack temp up, the flue pan calls for sap to keep the level up faster than the sap can heat up in the copper tubing. You can touch the copper right before it goes into the float valve and it is cold. Also the channel that the sap dumps into doesn't boil anything like the other two.

David

David,
Smiles, Steam, Small ones, and Sleep! Nice shots!
Yea your seriously hooked. All your hard work is coming together and you have a great sugar house for entertaining.
Hope your season lasts a few more weeks!
Regards,
SM

You might try wrapping some thin insulation around the copper coils and the stack. I did that and then wrapped it with aluminum flashing and strapped it with band clamps. It seems to help transfer heat to the copper rather than losing it to the air.

I rigged up something special this year. :) I'll unveil my success/failure of a preheater after my first boil.

have a great season.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by afretired

No, it is a good waste of copper tubing. I thought it was a good idea, but it didn't pan out. When I watch what I am doing and keep the stack temp up, the flue pan calls for sap to keep the level up faster than the sap can heat up in the copper tubing. You can touch the copper right before it goes into the float valve and it is cold. Also the channel that the sap dumps into doesn't boil anything like the other two.

David

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SugarMaker
Thanks
Your right it's starting to come together. Today I finished tapping which puts me at about 200. I may get the itch and put out a few buckets but my help is a little short and I will have to run them myself. Today the sap was flowing again, I think tomorrow will be a big day. Still have a few things to get done in the sugar house. At least they set my pole and turned on the current yesterday so I don't have to operate off a generator.

David

You could try putting some sort of insulation around the copper tubing and the stack. It would probably work better. But you have a beautiful sugar shack. That could take away from it if it were done too quickly.

Look at Johnny Cuervo's pictures. He made a pre heater that works real well, out of copper and in contact with the stack. He even regulates the temperature.
On my evaporator I must shut down when I have 18 gal of sap in the head tank. Then when the fire burns out I have ended at the perfect level. It will just take time to find where you need to shut down.

Maple Flats
Thanks, I'll check out those pictures. The first time I boiled I run the sap down to low and the batch scortched before the fire died out. The next night I stopped it with 8 inches in my head tank (55 gal drum) and it worked out just about right. By the time the fire died I still had a few inches in the head tank and no scortch.

David your a quick study. Sounds about right with the amount of sap you left in the tank for "flooding" the pans at night.
I placed a mark on my sap gage showing when to stop firing.
Chris

It went real well today. Just have got back in the house from cooking all evening and entertaining passerbys. Had a lot stop to check out the action. At 2PM we had 150 gal of sap and we started cooking. Almost pushed a batch out before we again ran out of sap. It would just float the hydrometer about 1/2 inch out of the syrup. Really too thin to register on the hydrometer. Tomorrow will be the day. I had to take my four wheeler down into the woods at 9pm and check the tank. still running.

I went ahead and wrapped the copper coil preheater with sheet metal to help hold in the heat. It raised the temp up to about 69degrees from the 35 it is in the tank, still not hot enough. Tomorrow I will line it with ceramic wool and see if that helps.

David

AFretired,
In a pinch, cover the tubes with tin, then wrap it with fiberglass building insulation.

I'm interested in those tips about the copper! I did a test run with my barren evap today and the water coming out of the copper was hardly heated up at all!