Bill Mason's XL Hobby Evaporator

[steve J]

Before I had Bills 2x4 I had his 2x3 and the preheater on that sat over the rear of the pan. That caused condensation which drip back into the pan which than reduces your boil rate. Thats why when I bought the 2x4 I requested he build a frame off the back so that preheaater was over elbow this requires me to run a small length of stove pipe off back of evaporator before the elbow in order to get clearance. It works ok probably does not warm sap quite as much but there is no condensation running into pan. Last year was lost season due to weather but the year before which was my first with this new rig I could not keep up with 200 taps at the peak run so unless these new pan turns some fancy numbers I say there little chance of you handling 300 with a blower. I am hoping that the new pan might solve my peak run problem on 200 taps. I burn mixture of wrist size and smaller hemlock and same size hardwood this produces a ton of heat.

[Snowy Pass Maple]

Before I had Bills 2x4 I had his 2x3 and the preheater on that sat over the rear of the pan. That caused condensation which drip back into the pan which than reduces your boil rate. Thats why when I bought the 2x4 I requested he build a frame off the back so that preheaater was over elbow this requires me to run a small length of stove pipe off back of evaporator before the elbow in order to get clearance. It works ok probably does not warm sap quite as much but there is no condensation running into pan. Last year was lost season due to weather but the year before which was my first with this new rig I could not keep up with 200 taps at the peak run so unless these new pan turns some fancy numbers I say there little chance of you handling 300 with a blower. I am hoping that the new pan might solve my peak run problem on 200 taps. I burn mixture of wrist size and smaller hemlock and same size hardwood this produces a ton of heat.

I say that only because I'm using RO - currently keeping up easily with 127 taps and 2x4 flat, so was thinking 300 would be do-able with his flue pan, blower, and heavy RO use.

How warm do you find your preheater gets if in steady state with evaporator? Mine still seems very cold... to the point that I'm really only able to use the preheater as a reservoir, but doubt it's much over 60-70F when I'm feeding off it. Also wondering if anyone ever sets up some sort of condensate drain system on their preheater maybe tilting it with channels at side, etc? I have to still read up more on ways to tune all this but anything more elaborate will be for next season...

[steve J]

I would say mine gets to about 60 or 70 degrees its not a great preheater set up period.