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Sugarmaker, that's exactly what I did when I made my pan last year. I went with 20 ga which worked great but there is still some tricky welding with that thin of material.

What do you guys use for the end of season cleaning on the outside bottom of your pan to get the black creosote off? I tried oven cleaner last spring with less than great results. Ended up scraping...

Well I finally got to draw off some syrup this past weekend! We only had 25 gallons of sap to run but it was enough to reestablish the gradient within about 45 minutes once boiling. Initial draw was...

Thanks for the thoughts Gabe.

You are correct that I do not have bungs between the channels for down time. My master plan was to shear a couple pcs of stainless last week at work to make bungs and...

I was able to boil off another 100 gallons of sap this past weekend for a total of 180 gallons of sap and still waiting to draw off syrup. Sunday my temp gauge was creeping up to 217 so I started...

I was running 2" deep. From everything I've read on here 2" sounds like a safe place to run. Hoping to have at least 75 gallons to push through it later this week.

Just an update on the evaporator and pan I built this winter. My first time ever boiling sap this past weekend and I believe it was a success. Saturday with temps in the upper 40’s and protected from...

Thanks for all of the suggestions and tips. Planning on tapping tomorrow and running a test fire with water in the morning. Assuming my water thaws out, lol

Good call on the frost and leveling, It's within 0.125" now but I'm sure frost will move that. I'll have to check it before every boil.

Its kind of hard to see but in the first batch of pics I...

The last pic i posted was of the sight glass. Supposedly gives a clearer view of the level of sap in the pan as you are not looking through steam to figure it out. Maybe a gadget but i thought at the...

Gabe, that thread is spot on to my situation. I’m a little over two hours from my sugarbush and am there every weekend. Still working to pay the bills and there’s no way I replace my income moving up...

Great info on the float box suggestions. For this year I put a sight glass from Smoky Lake in line with the draw off valve and will trickle feed from the warming pan. Next year float box!

So again...

Thanks for the comments GO. I have two dividers in my pan, kind of hard to see with the original pics.

I think I have first year maple syrup anxiety and I’ve never tapped a tree yet, LOL! Maybe someone can chime in on a few concerns I have with my plan.

First off, I decided last fall 2020 that I...