Steam Tray Budget Evaporators - New Size Double Pans

[Openwater]

Got it. Would you anticipate a capacity problem in the final little pan at the end of the boil? I assume that little pan will get alot more than 2" deep towards the end. I'm not sure what it's actual volume/capacity is, but I'm planning on boiling 35-40 gallons at a time. I'm sure after this first run, I'll have a lot better feel for the specifics; just might take some trial and error.

Thanks Gord!
Pretty amazing what you can do with an old free file cabinet and some old rusty angle iron.

[MapleLady]

I boil on a block arch with steam table pans. My back pan closest to the stack always boils the hardest. My front pan, nearest the door, seems to be the last to reach a fast boil - probably because it looses temperature when I add wood.

I do like the look of your set-up, using the old file cabinet. Have you lined it with fire brick? You will have to keep us posted on how well it does.

[berkshires]

Got it. Would you anticipate a capacity problem in the final little pan at the end of the boil? I assume that little pan will get alot more than 2" deep towards the end.

You should be able to keep the level the same throughout the boil. If it starts to foam up, and you think you're getting close to syrup, you could ladle some of it out of that pan and into a bucket (or the pot you plan to use to take it to syrup) and then back-fill with sap from the middle pan. Think of it as kind of a poor-man's continuous pan, where you might start "drawing" syrup or near-syrup if it gets dense in your syrup pan.

Gabe

[berkshires]

I assume that little pan will get alot more than 2" deep towards the end. I'm not sure what it's actual volume/capacity is, but I'm planning on boiling 35-40 gallons at a time.

Here's what I'm thinking on this - correct me if I'm wrong:

Assuming all but a few gallons of your sap eventually works its way into your front pan by the end of a boil, you're looking at maybe 3/4 of a gallon of syrup by the time you're done. A gallon is 231 cubic inches. The 1/3 pan is something like 12"x6", right? So that's 72 cubic inches per inch of syrup in the pan. 3/4 of a gallon would be 173 cubic inches, or about 2.5" in your little pan.

So that's not too far off. I would still be prepared to ladle it into another container and back-fill, but you shouldn't have to do that too much, unless you wind up with much more sap. And honestly, with 50 taps, you probably will at some point!

Cheers,

GO

[Openwater]

I just measured my little pan - a gallon of water is just about right at the top of the pan.
Today I collected 18 more gallons of sap, so I got about 31 gallons in storage and if I collect another 10+ gallons tomorrow, I should have more than 40 gallons to boil on Sunday.
Sugar on both the walnut and red maples was 2.0%.
Originally I lined the entire inside of my evaporator with 1/2" cement board, mainly to give it a little more structural support and later decided to add the firebrick and mineral wool. When I was constructing, I didn't know anything about ceramic cloth.
Evap interior.jpg

[Sugar Bear]

I just measured my little pan - a gallon of water is just about right at the top of the pan.
Today I collected 18 more gallons of sap, so I got about 31 gallons in storage and if I collect another 10+ gallons tomorrow, I should have more than 40 gallons to boil on Sunday.
Sugar on both the walnut and red maples was 2.0%.
Originally I lined the entire inside of my evaporator with 1/2" cement board, mainly to give it a little more structural support and later decided to add the firebrick and mineral wool. When I was constructing, I didn't know anything about ceramic cloth.
Attachment 21879

Are you mixing your walnut sap and red maple sap together or boiling separately?

[berkshires]

I just measured my little pan - a gallon of water is just about right at the top of the pan.
Today I collected 18 more gallons of sap, so I got about 31 gallons in storage and if I collect another 10+ gallons tomorrow, I should have more than 40 gallons to boil on Sunday.

Wow that is little! I think it still might work if you just ladle it out when it gets dense. But you will soon enough be the expert on your specific setup.

Sounds like you're about ready to go. Good luck!

GO

[Openwater]

I'm planning on boiling both the walnut and maple sap together. Depending how much maple sap I have, I might run it thru the RO5 before boiling. I don't want to end up with a 12 hr boil and clean up on Superbowl Sunday.

[Openwater]

Well, learned alot from the first boil yesterday.
Started with 58 gallons, RO'ed down to 33 gallons to boil which took about 10 hrs; still have to finish on stove today.
My nice new "evaporator" is now a charred mess as are the pans.
The pans are only 4" deep, so I had a lot of boil-overs after stoking the fire each time, but learned we could avoid the boil-overs (and control the heat being applied) by adjusting the speed control on the AUF blower fan; thank goodness I put a dimmer switch on it.

For next time:
1. We have (3) 30 gallon SS stock pots we had used for brewing beer which will now be employed to "pre-boil" on propane burner before being added to evaporator pans.
2. Will switch to at least (1) 6" deep steam pan on evaporator. Back of arch is too shallow to put a 6" pan on back before the stack.
3. Recruit more crew to help with the constant foam skimming.
4. Don't underestimate how long it will take to process 58 gallons of sap into syrup.

Any tips, suggestions or advice, let me know.

[Pdiamond]

Try using canola oil for the foam issue. Just a couple of drops will knock it down. I use a ketchup dispenser like you see in a restaurant with the long neck, makes it easy to control the amount of oil. Getting the deeper pans will also help. Anyway you can make it deeper for another pan in the back.