Poor man's continuous flow system

[Cjadamec]

If you have elbow fittings for the pex that would take the place of the bend support. Fittings were my first choice but I didn't have any on hand. Good luck with your boiling.

[Thumb Bum]

Going to have to be fittings I don't have been to supports

[Haynes Forest Products]

Cjadamec In the plumbing business that valve would be called a tempering valve. Now have you experienced what happens when the pump stops circulating the sap thru the coil when its glowing red? I like your ingenuity and thinking out side the box. Don't ever let someone tell you something wont work unless they can show you the scars to prove it.

[Cjadamec]

Haven't overheated the coil as of yet but one day I'm sure it's in my future. I've got lots of experience in steam plants and ships so I'm used to the saying if it works it isn't stupid. Some days you just need to make it work and 20 fittings and adaptors later you are back up and running.

I still think it's a recirc line, a tempering valve would mix the hot water with cold to change the water temp. My recirc line is bypassing pump output back to the pump suction to control pressure and flow out of the end of the coil. Having the extra valve at the end of the coil gives me fine control of flow into the pans. As a side benefit keeping the coil under a couple pounds of pressure stops the sap from boiling in the coil.

[Haynes Forest Products]

I had a complete boiler set up for my preheater, recirc pump, pressure tank, heat exchanger, pressure relief, auto fill and my coil was inside the flue stack. I forgot to turn on the recirculater pump on and boy things got to rattling before steam started to come out the relief valve. YIKES

[Cjadamec]

As years go by and I'm looking for faster evaporator rates going to a full pressure boiler type Preheater might come into play. That little pump is rated for 100psi....

For now though happy to have all 5 pans at a steady boil and not having to dump ice cold sap into my pans killing everything. I had 70 gallons to start yesterday and had to shut it all down after about 4 hours because my 55 gallon barrel was almost empty. Should get a nice run this weekend so I can get another go at tuning the setup in.

[to100]

So how deep is sap I your pans? How do you take near out and finish? Are you set up in a shack or open air?
How do you prime your pex, do bubbles break you flow often?

[Cjadamec]

Honestly last night was the first time I ran this so I have a lot to hash out about the best way to run it.

I'm set up out in the open no shack just me the evaporator and mother nature. My only taste of civilization is the extension cord bringing power over from my pool sub panel. I use the power for some LED flood lights, the AUF blower, and now the pump (it's a 12v pump powered off a 110v power supply).

Up untill now I have only batch processed hadn't even thought far enough ahead to think that I could draw off this setup. It wasn't until I saw it working that I realized what I had built. I just didn't want to manually move the sap around. I will probably still batch process basically, but the hamster is slowly spinning the idea wheel and I may try to finish on the evaporator at some point.

I started the prime when everything was cold by filling the tube with sap sticking my fingers over the ends and putting them in the pans. That worked well untill it didn't. I had to reprime a couple of times after everything was hot by basic doing the same thing. A lil tricky to be sure without scalding myself. Vapor lock is the death nail of all siphon tubes and I know I can find a work around I just haven't yet.

I wouldn't say I had to prime often as long as it was running steady it just kept going. I think I caused more problems by changing things than I would had if I just left it alone.

When I let it run the way it wanted to my my back pan was running at around 5 inches deep, middle pans around 4", and the front two over the fire were around 3". My steam pans are 6 inches deep. When I let it run that way and kept the fire steady it seemed to run pretty good.

[wobbletop]

I'm interested in more details about the stack preheater. I had tried doing this before, but the sap always scorched in the tube.

What is the flow rate into the pan? What pump did you use?

My next attempt I was thinking was to have a pump to continually circulate the sap from the storage tank through the stack coil and back to the storage tank and repeat. Only when the pan required more sap, would I divert the preheated sap to the pan. Theoretically, if I could adjust the diversion to match the evaporation rate, it could be run without much interaction. As I run out of sap for the batch operation, I would switch to plain water running through the stack coil to prevent anything burning inside the coil. It could also then produce some warm water for cleanup.

Thanks for posting your setup!

[Haynes Forest Products]

Wobbletop One thing you need to do is when you run out of sap is chase it with clean water. Even a small amount on the inside will smell like a forest fire. I get some sap/syrup that will jump out of my pan and when it hits the arch it will wake you out of a deep sleep with gripping fear your burning the shack down. doesn't take much.