This will be first year with a divided pan and I have read lots on this site about it. I accept that it will take 150 gallons of raw sap to sweeten the 2x4, 4 channel pan. But I need to understand it.
If I just had a flat pan and boiled 80 gallons of sap, by the end of the day, I would have 2 gallons of syrup. I understand the principle of the gradient, but if I boiled the same 80 gallons of sap in a divided pan, for basically the same period of time, at the same level, wouldn’t most of it also have turned to syrup?
I will be boiling everyday I have sap to boil. I thought I read someone suggest to plug the openings at the end of the runs overnight to help keep the gradient. When I asked my pan maker about that, it was the first he had ever heard of that. Is plugging the ends overnight a common practice?
2022 - 5 pan block arch - 109 taps, 73 on 3/16 lines, 36 on drops into 5 gallon pails.
930 gallons boiled, 109 L (28.8 gals) of delicious syrup made.
DYI Vacuum Filter
2023 - 170 taps, mostly on lines, 1153 gallons boiled, 130 L (34.34 gals) of delicious syrup made, on a 2x4 divided pan and base stack, 8” pipe, on a block arch that boiled at a rate of 13 gallons per hour.
2024 - made 48 L, December to March, primarily over two fire bowls.