Bubblemaster 1.0!

[Russell Lampron]

Here are some pics of the air injection system that I built for my evaporator. The Bubblemaster 1.0! Before the Bubblemaster 1.0 all I was making was grade B and darker syrup. On March 19 I boiled for the first time with the Bubblemaster and since then right up to the very end I continued to make grade A syrup. That was close to half of my crop this season.

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[cadocter]

Wow that's impressive! What type of blower did you use and where did you locate it at?

[Russell Lampron]

I used a new shop vac and put it outside on the platform next to my feed tank. I used 1 1/2" PVC pipe to connect it to the Bubblemaster.

[cadocter]

I never would have thought of that. Nicely done!

[red maples]

yes I did read that you barely need defoamer and it knocks the amount of niter way down because you are really boiling at a stightly lower temperature and the agitation causes less niter. and cleaner pans as well. the article I read said its good for ROed concentrate as well as raw sap too. because with the raw sap it will spend ALOT more time in the pans developing color sugar flavor more niter and more chance to get carmelized sugars to form. creating darker syrup.

[Russell Lampron]

Russ do you think a air pump for a large fish tank would be enough air and filter through the charcoal and water same as fish tank? I know you said that you had it cut way back.Also 1/2 inch tubing instead of the 1 inch copper and 1/4 inch air tubes instead of the 3/8. Your thoughts would help with many that are going to go this route for next year. Thanks Keith

I don't know if 1/2" pipe and 1/4" tubes would be too restrictive to get air all of the way to the end. I'm also not sure if the aquarium pump will move a large enough volume of air for it to work. The only way to know would be to try it.

Very neat setup up there Russ.
Need more pics. How did the pan bottoms look after boiling for awhile? Were they cleaner than with out the bubblemaster 1.0?
How far off the pan bottom did you place the bubble tubes?

The bottom of the front pan looks like I just cleaned it with the exception of the area that didn't have holes in the tubes. On the draw off channels the holes start 12" away from the thermometer stem. I haven't removed the steam hood to clean the flue pan yet so I can't see the bottom of that. The sight tube is a lot cleaner than it used to be. The tubes are 1/2" off of the botom of the pan.

The biggest benefit of the air bubblers for me was that I no longer use any defoamer.

I still use some defoamer especially with the late season sap. The amount that I use is drastically reduced though.

yes I did read that you barely need defoamer and it knocks the amount of niter way down because you are really boiling at a stightly lower temperature and the agitation causes less niter. and cleaner pans as well. the article I read said its good for ROed concentrate as well as raw sap too. because with the raw sap it will spend ALOT more time in the pans developing color sugar flavor more niter and more chance to get carmelized sugars to form. creating darker syrup.

I must not have read that paper. I haven't read anything yet that mentions raw sap but I can see that it could help there too.

[Dennis H.]

Very neat setup up there Russ.
Need more pics. How did the pan bottoms look after boiling for awhile? Were they cleaner than with out the bubblemaster 1.0?
How far off the pan bottom did you place the bubble tubes?

[Mark]

The biggest benefit of the air bubblers for me was that I no longer use any defoamer.

[maplesyrupstove]

100_0042.jpg100_0045.jpg100_0049 (2).jpg 2 Air Injector Filter Pumps on the outside of sap house.Air Injector pipes in sap evaporator and air injector pipes in finish evaporator.

[red maples]

What do you think would be the optimum CFM required? I wanna see if I can get a little squirrel cage blower and make a manifold for it. so is that 1 inch pipe that the 3/8 pipe is conected to? if that is 3/8 tubing?

and its hard to see how did you connect the smaller tubbing onto the larger pipe? I am really gonna do this for next year as well. See how it goes!!!