Fourth test boil was ultimately a success, but I have a few questions.

[Swingpure]

1. Using brick or fireboard, add a small section of ramp to the end nearest the stovepipe to help direct the exhaust/air upward instead of hitting the flat back of the arch and scattering around and coming out everywhere.
2. Adding air is good, as long as you do #1. Maybe you're adding too much for your current setup. Can you throttle back a little?
3. Pan gasket between your pans and arch will help quite a bit. If you're getting too much air leakage from between your block, a little fireboard should help.

Realistically, you could do those things...or just grab your chair and a beer and use up more wood and time. At some point you need to either relax and enjoy boiling, or you'll end up convincing yourself you need a real evaporator. So your choice becomes spend it in beer or spend it on an evaporator.

The bottom of my stovepipe is right even with the horizontal flat part of my ramp.

Once things got going, there was very little coming out between the pans and the walls. I cannot imagine the pans boiling much more than they were.

Cinderblock evaporators have their limitations, however as mainebackswoodssyrup said, there is a certain enjoyment and satisfaction building your own and making it work. I think I added a few features to mine, that I have not seen on other cinderblock evaporators.

Having said that, I do appreciate any advice to improve what I have. A professional evaporator is not in the immediate future.

This year will be a giant learning curve. I will learn real world how many gallons per hour my evaporator will boil, I will learn if I can handle all of the sap my taps produce, how good I am at boiling and finishing, because I want to make Grade A syrup. I will learn just how much work it is and if I am at the right number of taps, or if I reduce down to just to 20 buckets.

It will be a fun ride and it will be done with an evaporator I made.

I do appreciate all of the advice and I will see if I can get some material to better seal up around the pans.

[berkshires]

Thanks for the clarification. I guess if you want to use the induction pots, I would just use them to add a little more GPH.

So I would ladle from your preheated into pan one, and both induction pots. Then ladle from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, etc.

You'll wind up making syrup in pan 4 and your two induction pots.

GO