Boil Off Maple Rama

[802maple]

Rejean, if you had a gin and tonic earlier, I am sure you would have caught on quicker.

[Rejean]

802 Maple,
alas, Tanqueray or Bombay would have not helped much. My marching orders were: "No smoke and let's stick to every specification published to date". I really wanted to prove that the Force 5, while being a green machine, could compete head to head with fast but inefficient (smoke, lots of wood) evaporators. I think that the cards are finally on the table!!!
Cheers

[sam1234]

Does anyone have the final numbers for each manufacturers - qty of wood used? total gallons of water evaporated?

In my opinion, I think CDL went for the max evaporation ''award''.
Ususally, in drag racing, this is what people want to see! :-), but the CDL rig is flexible so it could have used less wood, but evaporated less water too...

This is what I like about this rig, flexibility....
some producers do not care about wood consumption, they want performance.

But I think all the rigs did great since within 2 hours of boiling, they didn't have time to stabilize. It would have been nice to see a longer boiling period.

[Rejean]

Sam1234,
here it is, directly from Andy (our host)!

gallons Wood pallet Details

CDL 310 1 1/2 9' flue pan (+12.5%)
WH Supply 200 7/8
D&G 285 1 1/4
Lapierre 285 7/8
Leader 300 1 1/4 11" flues (+60%)

A pallet was approx. 1/8 of FULL cord.

Enjoy!

[sam1234]

Interesting

Thank you Rejean.

[802maple]

Rejean, I have to agree with you about to dryness of wood. When I originally designed the Intens-O-Fire, I told the powers to be at Maple Pro that it should have some moisture to the wood and I was told I was nuts. (like everyone else does). If I get my act in gear, I have a new idea in a pan and arch design that I will have ready for next year if all goes well, then we will have to put the bottle of tangueray between us and have at it. LOL

[Thad Blaisdell]

Now with all that info I would be interested in knowing the cost of each unit to buy. Then you could have dollar per gallon boiled off. To me that is where the bare bones is.

[Rejean]

802 maple,
wood moisture is the KEY to excellent gasification... Evaporators that require dry wood (less than 20%) are likely not true gasifier. Wood gas is better produced from "wet wood". Wood gas burns just like propane (smokeless, hot, clean)...

[Amber Gold]

Rejean, glad to see you're finally on the trader. How much better do you think you could've done with wood at the optimum moisture content?

I'm glad to see the boiloff was finally done and I agree it should be done every year. I am surprised the max flue pan doesn't make that much of a difference, but then how do they claim the boiling rate increases by 20%? I think Proctor verified this when they were boiling w/ different technologies to determine what the actual gains are between stock rig, max pan, steamaway, preheater, and etc.

Running the numbers for gal boiled/wood consumed, I got the following:
CDL 1656 gal/chord
W.H. Supply 1824 gal/chord
D&G 1824 gal/chord
Lapierre 2600 gal/chord
Leader 1920 gal/chord
My Rig 1000 gal/chord

Keep in mind, I've put these into gal/full chord numbers, assuming the pallets were 1/8 chords. What's interesting is not only did the Force 5 have a top boiling rate number, it was also ~35% more efficient than it's closest efficiency competitor (Leader). I'm guessing it wouldn't have taken too much effort to have gotten the Force 5 over 300 gal boiled.

The numbers for "My Rig" are approximate and are based on how much wood I burned and how much concentrated sap I think I boiled...this was hard to determine since I started the season at 6% and finished at ~15%, I estimated an 8% average. So this shows the modern rigs are ~80% more efficient than my rig w/ a forced draft blower...that's a serious drop in wood consumption for anyone making an upgrade. This also shows technology has come a long ways in recent years.

[Thad Blaisdell]

Two things that has not been told yet that I have now heard is

That Leader was disqualified for bringing the max flue pan and that at the end they just let it simmer therefore the lower boiling amount.

Secondly that WH Supply blew the motor running the Air over Fire, thus giving them the lower boil amount.

More food for thought,
CDL rig as it sat was $26,000
WH Supply $18,000
Lapierre ???
D&G ???
Leader ???

Would love to know the last three