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Thread: Natural Gas Stove Top Evaporator

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  1. #22
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Kittanning PA
    Posts
    286

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    I just finished my first season with the stovetop evaporator and it worked great. My only discontent was with the 1/2 inch stainless steel float valve that I bought cheap on Ebay. I may, eventually replace it with a more expensive float valve, perhaps one designed for 3/4 inch pipe, because there was variation of about an inch in the level of the boiling sap in the connected pots. So if you use a cheap float valve, don't try for a boiling level below 2 inches.

    I recommend this system for people who like to just check how things are boiling every 90 minutes or so instead of having to be with the evaporator constantly while it is boiling. I'd check the RO and the evaporator at the same time and I'd adjust the concentrate flowing from the RO so that the two would keep pace with each other. I'd also adjust the outflow of the system based upon the temperature of the boiling sap in the last pot and I'd occasionally have to tap the float on the float valve when the level of the sap was getting low.

    I'm building a second RO for next year, identical to my first. Each of my RO's will be able to put out 3.5 gallons of concentrate per hour while getting rid of about three times as much water. I'll try feeding the concentrate directly from the ROs to the feeder pot. Even though my evaporator is slow, the combination of my two ROs and my evaporator should be able to process 30 gallons of sap per hour during a big run. And I can continue to process sap day and night when necessary, just checking every 90 minutes or so to make sure everything is proceeding without problem. My other advantages are that I can easily scale everything down for a small batch and also that I don't have to have as much storage capacity because I can process sap as it flows in.

    So for about $3,000 of investment ($1,000 each for my evaporator and two ROs), I'll be able to process about 30 gallons of sap per hour!
    Last edited by HowardR; 03-30-2018 at 12:31 PM.
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