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preheater
I am thinking of adding a preheater to our 3x10 king that was new last spring. I'm not sure if this will pay for itself or even come close. Some friends claim they work great and raise sap temp to 180 or higher. Others are not nearly as happy with the results. Also we would need to remove preheater for a few days when we do group tours and the hood blocks to much of what is happening in the evaporator. Does anyone remove theirs and reinstall during the season? Also we are wood fired and will be using forced draft.
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I feel they are worth it. As far as removing for tours I would not bother because you would have to disconect the pipes and reconnect after you took the hood off. On mine I have 4 doors two on each side and when people come they can look inside ok and see what is going on. I do have mine set up with cord and pulleys so that when I clean I can hoist the whole assembly straight up and leave it in the air. I have never heard of anybody taking the hood off for tours. As far as people not satisfied the only thing I can say is that you need to size the pre-heater to the evaporator, too small and you can't get it hot and, too big and the possibility of vapor locking. If your sap is entering at 180-200 you will notice higher capacities per hour
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Gmcooper, I think I was told that a steam hoods improve the efficiency 17-20%. The best part is steam control and the hot water to wash equipment with.
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preheaters
Brian is right on about the free hot water, not having to skim the back pan isnt bad either. We use sliding doors on our rig to show off the back pan
But several guys Glenn Goodrich for one have installed windows and explsion proof lighting under their hoods for viewing
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Why don't you have to skim? what makes it not foam up?
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Even without a preheater or steamhood you should try to keep the back pan from foaming up. I use either butter or a commercial defoamer. If you don't "knock" down the foam it acts like a cover and reduces the boil that you have or should have. Decreasing the foam will increase the gph of sap that you can boil.
pegjam
4x14 small bros, wore out wife, two kids, a mule, whole lota chickens, turkeys, 2 coonhounds, and a milkcow.
Hope this helps, can't hurt.
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I have a plexiglass sliding doors on my hood, but I am not brave enough to put a light inside even though it could be done really easily. I finished installing my hood and preheater today along with my blower and I can't wait to test it out. I am only 6 weeks from tapping, so I am going to be brave and skip the test boil. I don't see any reason to have a test boil as everything seems to be fine. I may test the head pressure and preheater setup with cold water, but we'll see.
I hope a preheater makes a lot of difference. I have 30+ feet of 3/4" copper type L(thin walled) copper pipe in my preheater, so I hope it rocks. 8O
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Steam hoods, forced air and pre-heaters... its all about getting the most out of the fuel and time you spend in the sugar shack. Steam hoods help keep drafts off the surface of the sap, keeps the heat in, gives you distilled hot water supply (we use it to heat our cans of soup for lunchtime)and gets the steam (actually, condensed water vapor) out. Forced air would be my next choice, as it pushes the heat/flames along the whole length of your arch and greatly reduces the build-up of coals and ashes. The preheater utilizes the free heat in the steam hoods to take the chill off the sap; just make sure you have a drip pan to capture the condensing water with a drain to get it out as well... another hot water source. I remember hand-dipping cold sap from the storage tank into our flat pan system years ago, and how discouraging it was when the cold sap killed the boil. Same deal without the preheater, however you don't see the effect to the same extent in a flue pan. With the preheater, we have had a full boil in the flue pan from front to back and side to side. And yes, you still need to watch for foaming with a preheater.
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Hey Russ- I was wondering how much sap you needed to fire up your old 5x16?? I was looking back at my recordes and am a little nervous about having enough sap to run the one I am getting,,,I am thinking mabey Ill keep the 3x10, stick it out in the tank room and use that when I dont have enough sap to run the 5x16,,???
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Hey Parker: What happened to the flashing blue light special??? :lol: :lol: :lol: Getting a few wedding night jitters?? :lol: :lol: :lol:
Pegjam