Wood
Hey every one. I just got a new mini log splitter and I've been putting in wood like crazy. If I put up some pretty fresh cut wood, that is some what still green, do you think it'll be okay if I split it and be able to use it this spring? Just wondering what every one thinks. Oh, what do you guys think is the best hard wood for fueling your evaporator.
1150 Taps, one 250GPH RO, one 900GPH RO
2x6 Patrick Phaneuf Deluxe raised flue, with forced air, preheater,and stainless hoods.
18x50 Sugarhouse
2002 Cummins Sap Hauler
If you split is small, stack it criss crossed where there is lots of air movement and hopefully some sunshine and cover the top of the stack, it should be pretty good.
The rule of thumb here seems to be that the splitting should give you peices that are no bigger than the size of your wrist..
You'll get lots of opinions about what to burn. I was surprised to read here that lots of people think softwood burns hotter, and faster, which means you'll need to add wood more often and have a bigger pile.
We boiled with a Half Pint a few years ago. We put a small blower in the ash door and got it going so good that after dark the smoke stack was glowing dull orange/red in the night. If you do that you'll boiled about 50% faster, and use 2 to 3 times as much wood.
If you're splitting green right now it probably won't be very dry by spring unless you store it in a heated building. If you split really small it might dry enough to be usable, but really you should aim to cut and split wood a year in advance of when you plan to use it.
The best wood to burn is whatever you can get the cheapest (free is best of course).
Homemade 2X4 w/Flat Pan
50 taps....but always looking to expand
Mostly box elders with a scattering of red, silver, & sugar maples
Allis Chalmers C & Homemade Sap Sled
Wood
Yeah I had a fan going in the sap house last year for steam release and another under the evaporator draft door. I was feeding the fire every 30 min with a arm of wood pieces. I usually have maple to burn but I know that some people will burn with pine or other soft woods. I like hard woods and maple the best, besides burning pine makes cracking noises and it stinks like pitch.
1150 Taps, one 250GPH RO, one 900GPH RO
2x6 Patrick Phaneuf Deluxe raised flue, with forced air, preheater,and stainless hoods.
18x50 Sugarhouse
2002 Cummins Sap Hauler
Good dry hardewood will give you the most BTU and boil the fastest handsdown.Softwood works but you will not get the same evap. rate per hour. I ran some Red Pine through my evaporater this past season and could tell the difference in how fast the sap was coming into the floatbox. There was that much difference. If you put fresh cut wood in now it will not burn as well as it should. Force draft will help.Originally Posted by ClarkFarmMapleSyrup
Hey every one. I just got a new mini log splitter and I've been putting in wood like crazy. If I put up some pretty fresh cut wood, that is some what still green, do you think it'll be okay if I split it and be able to use it this spring? Just wondering what every one thinks. Oh, what do you guys think is the best hard wood for fueling your evaporator.
This never ending wood debate makes me chuckle. I have to say that when it comes to burning wood in a conventional evaporator you can throw the btu stats right out the window. BTU's are going to be higher in hardwoods than softwoods for one reason. It burns longer. Meaning you get more heat out of a cord of hardwoods than softwoods due to the length of the burn. Softwoods especially pine burns hotter for shorter periods of time getting you less BTU's per cord. What I think is happening to some is that the key to burning the softwoods/pine is the consistancy in firing the evaporator. I have proven to my dad time and time again with him on the wood debate. I can boil my headtank out alot faster burning pine than I can with hardwood, and thats only a visual the math on gph doesnt lie. Pine is 95% of what I burn.
2X6 deluxe Phanuef
Adding 200 more every year
27 years left of building a Hobby into a retirement time burner.
When you have to open the door and shut the blower down to keep putting in softwood you loose alot of heat everytime.If you talk to the major evaporater companys they all say that hardwood is best. Have to agree with them I can boil twice as fast with DRY hardwood as opossed to pine and that is even with a Inferno arch. 3rdgen. if pines working for you that go with it. Like the old saying goes "if it ain't broke than don't fix it".
Ahhh see I said conventional evaporator, you had to go throw an inferno arch and blowers into the equation. lol Im sure having air over fire and under fire makes a difference. Probably would have to be loading pine in one every minute. But I stand by the point pine burns hotter just not as long, now if you have to open the doors and shut blowers off your going to kill your gph with loss heat out the door. I think we just solved the pine/hardwood debate once and for all.So lets say if your running a high effiecient arch with blowers hardwood is the way to go, if your running a conventional arch with maybe air under the fire pine is the way to go. Makes perfect sense to me now. See debates are great we get answers when we listen to each other. Greenwich your a good man.
Now back to the original post. When you said you only load an armful every 30 minutes throws up a red flag for me. You are running a halfpint and to get the max gph your would should be burning up faster. So I am thinking that maybe you are not splitting your wood small enough. I went through the best year and worst year I ever had last year due to running out of wood with the amount of sap I got. I ended up using wood that was not completely dried. It was slabs of mixed hardwood and pine that was cut in the fall. My gph was half at best and made for some fustrating boils with sap piling up fast. If you can get your hands on drier wood I wouldnt hesitate for a second to get it. You might be fine with what you have but might not so I would play it safe.
Now back to the
Last edited by 3rdgen.maple; 09-06-2011 at 09:48 PM.
2X6 deluxe Phanuef
Adding 200 more every year
27 years left of building a Hobby into a retirement time burner.
Fellow producer has all the wood he wants from his saw mill and all he burns is the cedar, pine, hemlock and any soft fast burning wood. I'm with 3rdgen soft pines are fast and furious.
I mix mine about 30% soft. I prefer all hard but I like to use up some of my slab wood off my sawmill. I do fuel it sooner however when using slab. I have high pressure AOF and I fuel every 11 minutes with the mix and every 12 on just hard. I do not shut the AOF off to fuel and nothing comes out the door as I open except some heat. The door is open about 10-15 seconds. As soon as the door closes I have a full boil, no waiting.
Dave Klish, I recently ordered a 2x6 wood fired evaporator from A&A Sheet Metal which I will be converting to oil fired
Now have solar, 2x6 finish pan, 5 bank 7x7 filter press, large water jacketed bottler, and tankless water heater.
Recently bought another Gingerich RO, this one was a 125, but a second membrane was added thus is a 250, like I had.
After running a 2x3, a 2x6, 3x8 tapping from 79 taps up to 1320 all woodfired, now I'm going to a 2x6 oil fired and a 200-425 taps.
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