Half pint arch design

[Milton]

I bought a nice half pint pan only used 1 season. Anyone have advice on designing an arch? I also got the feed pan but .not sure how to incorporate it. The way leader suggests does not seem like it will preheat much and seems like it will condensate into pan.

[Pdiamond]

i was on masons website yesterday. if you look at that, it may give you some idea of what you may need. i am assuming you are going to build an arch to fit the pans.

[phil-t]

Where, in NY are you? I have a factory half-pint with a homemade addition for preheating that works great. I might have some PICs, not home till September, or I coould get whatever you want - or you could visit, if nearby.

Try this: https://photos.app.goo.gl/9R2iJbf4ktYW7YpC7

[maple flats]

I had a half pint for my first year making syrup. I bought it used. While the warming pan was not perfect, and it did drip a portion of the condensed steam back into the syrup pan, it did help pre-heat and thus improved the boil rate. That being said, the best I ever got out of it was between 6-7 gph. To get that I had to split the wood to under wrist size, have it fully dried and add fuel every 5 minutes. I also had to add to the warming pan every 30 minutes rather than waiting until it got low. That helped keep the temperature higher. I also ran the pan between 3/4" and max 1" deep, deeper and the evaporation rate suffered significantly.

[Milton]

Thanks for all the info. I like Phil's setup but not sure if you can reverse flow with that configuration. The photos were very helpful thanks for the info. Phil, what do you get for gph? Looks great.

[phil-t]

I reverse flow, daily (or about every 50-60 gal of sap). Outlets of the preheat pan sit over the end of the boil pan. Copper feed tube, you see on left, brings sap to front of pan for that direction. There is also a regular "cattle tank float" at the gravity inlet to the preheat tank that keeps it full. I keep the pan at 1-1/4 to 1-1/2" while boiling and feed the fire dry small splits (wrist size or smaller) and can maintain 8-9 gph. Needs a lot of attention to do that. I think key in this setup is that the sap in the preheat pan, is at or very near, boiling all the time.

[Pdiamond]

Phil, those were some beautiful pictures of the evaporator.

[maple flats]

Back when I had a half pint it had 4 channels, later Leader cut back to 3 channels (but didn't cut the price.) Phil's design looks great!
On your warming pan just add a second take off, have one feed to one channel, one to the opposite, each with a valve. To reverse flow close one valve,open the other. You can also reverse by turning the pan 180. I like having 2 valves on the pan and just feed from the other side to reverse.
You can either solder a valve or use a hot temp bulkhead fitting. To drill a hole, many use a step bit, I use a Greenlee punch.

[Mead Maple]

Milton,
I ended up building an arch out of a 275 gallon oil drum. Honestly, it worked fantastic and took the 2'x4' mason divided pan to it's max capabilities (13 gallons per hour) for evaporation. Even with 2"x4" reinforced rails, I was able to get things glowing red hot with brick inside and those rails would warp all kinds of funny shapes and then slowly reract as things cooled. This of course was with a blower using mostly popple split down to wrist size and firing every 8-9 minutes, can't remember which now. I would trickle in slowly using a valve on the Mason preheater pan that yes, did drip some sweat back into the divided pan. I was able to get boil to reach all the way back almost to the inlet of fresh sap. Having the arch design I did allowed a lot of heat to come off the upper rear and push heat into the preheater pan which I think did help substantially from the cold sap coming in.

Conclusion? I think it would have been just as easy, actually easier, had I bought angle iron and went with a conventional design looking back. Of course looking back I would have started the endeavor long before 2 weeks before tapping I don't have pictures on my computer but I'll edit this post and load some from my phone!

[Mead Maple]

Here you can see that once the pan was sweetened, the boil on the inlet side reached about halfway back. Pretty good for a 2'x4' with "warm-ish" sap coming in.

This is a great shot of basically the whole set-up. A valve from my head tank to the warming pan, then warming pan with a valve into the "flue pan", slowly making it's way to the "syrup pan" lol. One note, I tried to run it around 1" religiously, if it got above that, like other have mentioned, boil definitely decreased. I used a stainless steel ruler I had kicking around and measured from the outlet boxes on the pan itself where the boil was less intense.

This is probably the best to show you the design. Having that rear welded the way it was for the last 10"-12" of the tank was one of the largest unknown benefits during fabrication. I just left it initially so the fire would draft well and I would have an easier time welding a female ring so the insulated stack would sit into. But the amount of heat that uninsulated portion of the rig threw off was a major contributor in warming the sap preheater tank. Sometimes the stars just align...

Quick note: I welded some cross supports underneath of this beast because once I added all the necessary metal inside and out, moving it with anything other than the tractor would have been pretty much impossible. Not sure of your boiling location but thought I'd add that in because the rig became far from convenient to move otherwise.


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