Steam Pans

[Swingpure]

I added a third course of pavers today. It is a pretty snug fit on the sides, metal plates stopping flames coming up the long sides and plenty of room to grab the lip.

I am pleased.i will do another water boil test in the next few days. I just have to trim some fire brick.

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[Swingpure]

Is there any value in hooking up a sap drip system to the preheat pan, on a block arch, when using steam pans, or is it best just to keep it simple by drawing it by the partial potful out of a five gallon pail?

[Sugar Bear]

In the beginning I had three steam pans and used a drip system to the first pan. I tried to get the continuous flow going with the copper pipes, but no matter what anybody tells you, that will not work or will soon fail if your pans are boiling LIKE THEY MEAN IT.

I know somebody is going to claim they can do it with the siphons but like I've said before on this gig ... my mom is from Missouri.

Six years later, My siphons are on my copper to be recycled pile, and I now use four steam pans. Pan 1 ( closest to the stack ) is my preheat pan. Rather then scoop from a five gallon pail into it, I pour much of a five gallon pail of sap or concentrate directly into it after it has been scooped close to empty ( after it was preheated and near boiling ) by moving that sap to pans 2,3 and 4.

After I fill pan 1 up to preheat I put a lid over it as it will preheat much faster. Even boil with the lid on. Another good reason to buy the lids rather then use tin foil like someone recommended in our previous thread. If not for anything else I recommend at least buying one lid for your preheat pan. The lid on your preheat pan will get you to where you want to be faster and you don't have to worry about producing "maple tin foil dumpling soup". But it's good to see I am not the only Cheap B on this forum.

Usually I have to take the lid off my preheat pan with it boiling and trying to jump ship before pans 2, 3 and 4 need more sap. When that be the case so be it ... at least I have four pans rolling.

Do yourself a big favor and make sure you have purchased at least 1 steam pan lid for preheating purposes. Forget about any drip feed and siphon tubes. I found all of that to be a waste of time and effort.

[Swingpure]

In the beginning I had three steam pans and used a drip system to the first pan. I tried to get the continuous flow going with the copper pipes, but no matter what anybody tells you, that will not work or will soon fail if your pans are boiling LIKE THEY MEAN IT.

I know somebody is going to claim they can do it with the siphons but like I've said before on this gig ... my mom is from Missouri.

Six years later, My siphons are on my copper to be recycled pile, and I now use four steam pans. Pan 1 ( closest to the stack ) is my preheat pan. Rather then scoop from a five gallon pail into it, I pour much of a five gallon pail of sap or concentrate directly into it after it has been scooped close to empty ( after it was preheated and near boiling ) by moving that sap to pans 2,3 and 4.

After I fill pan 1 up to preheat I put a lid over it as it will preheat much faster. Even boil with the lid on. Another good reason to buy the lids rather then use tin foil like someone recommended in our previous thread. If not for anything else I recommend at least buying one lid for your preheat pan. The lid on your preheat pan will get you to where you want to be faster and you don't have to worry about producing "maple tin foil dumpling soup". But it's good to see I am not the only Cheap B on this forum.

Usually I have to take the lid off my preheat pan with it boiling and trying to jump ship before pans 2, 3 and 4 need more sap. When that be the case so be it ... at least I have four pans rolling.

Do yourself a big favor and make sure you have purchased at least 1 steam pan lid for preheating purposes. Forget about any drip feed and siphon tubes. I found all of that to be a waste of time and effort.

I plan to buy five steam pan lids, likely in December to space out purchases. Besides covering the preheat pan, which is pan 5 for me, on the days when I have more sap than I can boil, And I have stopped adding wood, I want to still be heating the sap with the residual heat and eventually cover the pans for the night as you suggested on the other thread.

I will also have a 5 qt pot boiling sap for me as an additional preheat source, which should produce a gallon of boiling sap every 20 minutes.

I did a measurement of the amount of fluid in a scooped out pot. I am sure you can get more in it, but when I filled my sink 2” high and scooped a potful out of it, it measured just over 2 cups. If my 5 pan evaporator can boil 8 gallons an hour, that means 64 series of pot movements. Call it one pot a minute.

This is going to be fun!

[Swingpure]

I saw a video where they said you should get 1 to 1.5 times the square footage of your pans for gallons boiled per hour. That is likely high for a block arch, but if it was accurate, my five steam pans at 8 square feet could get 8 to 12 gallons per hour. (I am just hoping for 7-8 gallons, anything else is bonus.)

My question is as a measure, when do you start calculating gallons boiled per hour? Do you wait until all pans are boiling, or wait until the second hour after everything is warmed up and boiling, or is it the final number at the end of the day?

[berkshires]

I saw a video where they said you should get 1 to 1.5 times the square footage of your pans for gallons boiled per hour. That is likely high for a block arch, but if it was accurate, my five steam pans at 8 square feet could get 8 to 12 gallons per hour. (I am just hoping for 7-8 gallons, anything else is bonus.)

My question is as a measure, when do you start calculating gallons boiled per hour? Do you wait until all pans are boiling, or wait until the second hour after everything is warmed up and boiling, or is it the final number at the end of the day?

I'm not sure if there is an "official" method, but I consider the start to be when I light the match, and the end to be about 15 or 20 minutes after my last firing, when the boil pretty much stops.

If you get a hard rolling boil in all your pans then you should see GPH in that range. If there are pans that never reach a hard boil, subtract a lot for those.

Gabe

[Swingpure]

Do yourself a big favor and make sure you have purchased at least 1 steam pan lid for preheating purposes.

I ordered 5 steam pan lids today. They are back ordered, but should arrive for the maple season. I can see them being helpful getting all of the pans to boiling at the start of the day, getting the preheat pan to a boil after fresh sap is added and for covering the partially boiled sap in the pans overnight, all things you have mentioned.

I did shop around for a good price to make it affordable. This is a Canadian site, but the price was the best I found. https://www.foodsupplies.ca/products...tainless-steel

[Sugar Bear]

I ordered 5 steam pan lids today. They are back ordered, but should arrive for the maple season. I can see them being helpful getting all of the pans to boiling at the start of the day, getting the preheat pan to a boil after fresh sap is added and for covering the partially boiled sap in the pans overnight, all things you have mentioned.

I did shop around for a good price to make it affordable. This is a Canadian site, but the price was the best I found. https://www.foodsupplies.ca/products...tainless-steel

Steam pans and lids are one of the many of hundreds of millions of items that have been substantially price gouged due to COVID 19.

It would be nice if the "Supply Chain" for making/producing maple syrup were "disrupted"

I don't make much maple syrup so I would not benefit very much ( would still have about the same amount of fun ) but I think it would be really cool for all those who do make a lot of syrup.

[Sugar Bear]

Also I would recommend to all newbies considering steam pans now at $40 each would be better off spending a little more for a custom made pan rather then spending $160 on four steam pans. ( without lids )

[Swingpure]

Also I would recommend to all newbies considering steam pans now at $40 each would be better off spending a little more for a custom made pan rather then spending $160 on four steam pans. ( without lids )

I don’t disagree with you, but it is a hard choice when you are first starting off and are not sure how you will feel after the first season. I was lucky in that I only had to pay $220 Cdn for four used pans, one new pan and 5 new lids. To buy the 2x4 pan with a tap and temp gauge would be over $500, which was unthinkable when I was first starting out, with an expected 16 buckets.

We will see how this season goes with 80 taps, but if I love it and want to improve, I will go out and buy the $500 pan and wish I had from the start, but at the start, it was unthinkable.