Just bought a new evaporator and I don't want to screw it up. Please advise :)

I convinced my wife to let me buy a 2x3 mason hobby evaporator this year and I don't want to screw it up. It's a big step up for me, as the prior 3 seasons, I have been using a gas grill as a pre-warmer and a turkey fryer burner as my evaporator. I don't have a sugar house, so I will be moving my evaporator from my shed to in front of my wood pile for each run. I tap about 10-12 trees and ran ~200 gallons of sap last year. I was going to build a cinder block arch this year, but decided to go to the next level.

Here is the list of questions I have so far:
What do I need to look for when I am buying my firebrick? I see some deals online, but I'm not sure if it isn't good brick.
I was thinking of mounting my evaporator on some sort of base that has wheels or skis to move it in and out of the shed. Has anyone done this?
What do I really need to know before my first run?
- How close to level to I need to be? I presume the more level the better. What problems will I have if I am out of level?
- Presumably I put a decent amount of sap in the pan before I start the fire to protect the pan? How much is enough or too much?
- When I want to stop for the day, how much sap/syrup do I leave in the pan? Do I empty it out after it cools down?
Do I need to think about tapping more trees? I don't want to be in a situation where I don't have enough sap to make use of the evaporator. I have some more maples on my land and the neighbors would allow me to tap their trees, if I gave them some syrup, I am sure.

I'm sure I have more questions, but these are all I can think of right now. Thanks in advance for your advice.

-Kyle Oliver
Andover, MA

Find a local masonry supply place they will have bricks a lot cheaper than you'll find anywhere else. Half bricks are fine.
Wheels will be fine, the biggest thing will be keeping the evaporator level. If your running your sap level around 3/4-1" then level is critical. You don't want to scorch the pan. The lower the level in the pan, the faster you will evaporate. I'd start out about 1-1/2" till you feel comfortable how the rig runs.
ALWAYS keep a bucket of sap or water next to the evaporator just in case.
That small of an evaporator, you could lose 1/2" or so from residual heat. If you boil every day it every few days, you can leave everything in the pans and just fire up again.
You can always give away or dump extra sap. But you can't boil what you don't have.

Hey Kyle:
I am running a homemade arch the same size as yours maybe a little heavier? bricked also. I move my arch around in my barn on level concrete with a frame made of 2 by 6's that has four caster wheels on it. The wheels are the hard rubber ones from Menards 4 inch Heavy Duty swivel and work good with the weight of my arch. But when I fire the arch I lift it off with a loader and take it out and set it on blocks to use it on gravel the casters won't roll on that at all. So if you can roll it from A to B on level smooth ground I would just go with Frame / casters. I don't thing heat will be an issue with the 2 by 6 frame? Good luck and happy sapping Jay

Attachment 14818

If putting it on wheels, devise a method to level it easily each time you set it up. Try to get it to have less than 1/4" off in any direction, 1/8" is even better. Maybe you can set up some sort of screw adjustable feet near each wheel. For the bricks, I second psparr. Most masonry yards will have them far cheaper than any maple supplier, and likely cheaper than any Ebay when you figure the shipping.. Read the instructions, a half pint uses a lot more bricks than you might guess. You can use half bricks (half thickness) to line the firebox, but use full bricks for the rear wall. A full brick is almost 2x as thick but is only slightly more in price. This said, I found refractory cement sometimes a better price at the maple suppliers, in larger sizes. While I've used both, I find the pre-mix easier to use, but dry , mix your own is cheaper and it does work OK.
My first season I was on a half pint, I started with 27 taps and kept adding after each sap run because I thought I could handle more. Then at 70 taps the sap ran better than it had up to that point and I had to boil 2.5 days straight, with my wife handling it5 when I slept and vise versa. That proved to be too many taps.
One thing I did that year when I had no sugarhouse was I set up a 10x10 vendor's tent over the evaporator (on my patio, and on the stack out the back I tilted it back about 30 degrees and braced it using 2 EMT poles and some metal perf. strap. That all worked, and I was hooked. That summer I designed a sugarhouse to be built at my sugarwoods and started dropping several hemlocks and hauled them to a local sawyer to be cut according to my cut list. This finally, after numerous set backs ended in my current 16'x24' sugarhouse. I now wish I had built a 24' x 36' one. I have drawn several sets of plans for a major addition but still have not gotten any further building done (yet).
At first I only planned for a bottler (canner) and a 2x6 evaporator along with some firewood and a couple of chairs. I now have a 3x8 evaporator, a filter press, 2 chest freezers, a microwave, a bottler, a 2x6 gas finisher, an RO, a 10' long wall sink SS unit, a compressor (to run the filter press air powered pump) a rolling tray rack that I bottle to, 2 work benches, a 28 gal draw off tank on wheels, a firewood rack and a heated RO room. I'm extremely crowded to say the least. When you grow, try to plan better than I did.

Kyle:

I have a 2x6 that I use outside my garage, but I did not want to leave it there all year, so I mounted it on an old 4 x 8 trailer that I had. I installed jacks on the four corners of the trailer for lifting, stabilizing and leveling. I set it up for the season and did not move it, but I do cover the pan at night. This arrangement worked well for me, but when I did move it into the barn after the season, I had a number of fire brick fall out. So, consider leveling it and leaving it for the season, although you may do a better fire brick job or smoother transportation than I did.

You can leave sap in it overnight during the 3-5 day runs if you have boiled the sap to sterilize it. Then you can give the pan a good cleaning in between runs. A lot of the larger producers are emptying and cleaning more frequently, but they are boiling more sap and often boiling concentrated sap so they get more niter build-up.

At the end of the day, you want to put enough sap in it that it does not boil empty. But you also want to make sure that any sap that you do put in it gets boiled for 15 minutes? to kill the microbes and sterilize the sap. I would generally boil with about an inch of sap, but at the end of the day, I would let the sap get up to 2 inches deep. I would stop feeding wood into the about 30 minutes before I figured I would run out of sap. Then the sap would keep boiling on the coals for about an 1/2 hour after I finished adding it. By morning, I was back down to about a 1 inch sap depth.

Cut some wood ahead, keep it dry, tap the trees sounds like you can go a few more taps now, Any time you have fire under the arch make sure there is 1 inch of sap minimum. Have fun. Have it fairly level 1/4 inch range is good.
Regards,
Chris

Congratulations on your new mason. It's agreat little rig. I boiled on one for three years and upgraded to a d&g sportsman this year. I think I bought 70 half bricks when I bricked mine. You might want to consider some arch board or blanket also. I just had the 1/4 inch ceramic blanket under the bricks and the sides got pretty warm. I ran mine about an inch deep. The cutout going into the draw off box is 2 inches. I used that for a reference to maintain my level. Your going to want the pan pretty level. I had anywhere from 23 taps to 43 taps on it and it handedled it well. On the big runs there was some 12 hours plus boils. Have fun with it, hope this helps ya out.

One of our sugaring partners put his half pint on a cart with heavy duty tires. He would roll it out of his garage, add the sap and level by adjusting the tire pressure. It worked really well!

You will have to decide how much time you want to spend boiling to know how many taps to have. With 10-12 taps, unless you have a few good runs in a week you won't be boiling long when you fire it up. I have a 2x3 and the first year I aimed for 40 taps. Earlier in the season the runs are smaller - 1/2-1 gallon/tap, so I kept thinking I could do more. Pretty soon I was up to 70. The first good run we had though, I found out that was too much like work! I decided that 55 taps was about right for the time I had to boil. Depending on how fast you boil you will decide how much time you will want to be boiling sap and how many taps you want for the size of your evaporator. Good luck with the new rig.

I too had a Half Pint that I mounted on a cart, held in place with C clamps. Would roll it out of the shop, onto a plywood base when I boiled. It worked very well.

I enjoyed being outside when I boiled. Something I miss on the sunny days, now that we have the sugar house. Good luck with your new rig...it's going to be a fun hobby for you.

Pic attached.

Attachment 14819

Kyle, O'Mahoneys in Lawrence will have the best prices on firebrick, fulls and splits.

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Originally Posted by eustis22

Kyle, O'Mahoneys in Lawrence will have the best prices on firebrick, fulls and splits.

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Great! Thanks for the tip. I'm just about 3 miles from the Lawrence line, so it will be nice to source them locally. Based on your history, it seems like I am just a few years behind you in the evolution! :)

I'm loving the cart idea. I'm thinking about something like this from Amazon: http://a.co/dXW6QcT

I might need to fortify the flatbed and figure out a way to anchor the evaporator to it. I'm a little concerned about it being top heavy. I won't be moving it too far, maybe 12-15 feet in and out of the shed. Attachment 14823 I like that I could use my lawn tractor to move it around, if I had to.

yeah you don't wanna be me.

I'm lost and doomed to be forever checking my taplines in the ghost maples.

Here are some photos of Dave's cart. And comments about it:

Bought it at Northern Hydraulics. Removed the push bar when I got it into place and adjusted the air in the tires to level. It was pretty heavy duty."


https://goo.gl/photos/WU6apgKBhSkLAsyf6