luckily Friday/Saturday will be cold.....I'll be able to catch up. ha. 10 day forecast looks great.
luckily Friday/Saturday will be cold.....I'll be able to catch up. ha. 10 day forecast looks great.
Maybe this isn't the best place to ask this question, but here it goes anyways.
I evaporate over a homemad barrel evaporator, and then finish my syrup in the house on the stove. I really struggle to know when to remove the sap from the evaporator and begin the finishing stage. Is there any sort of rule that could help, maybe temperature or density? I don't think I can finish on my current evaporator setup as the Temps are to inconsistent.
Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Odds are you "batch boil" like me. I always have overestimated how close to syrup I am when I shut down my evaporator.....then it takes fooooorevvvvver once you bring it in house to finish. I don't have a good answer for you. I've gotten a lot better over the years but I still struggle with that part. I yank it off the evaporator and think.....an hour tops to finish this batch, but then it takes forever. haha. so i feel your pain. only thing i can add is.....it gets better with experience.
i know guys go by temp and other methods....but with batch boiling (at least with my setup), i have to time everything right cause i can't yank my pan off easily, so i stop feeding the fire and hope it stop evaporating at the right time....so i always play it safe and do it early but that means more time finishing.
I think I'm one of the few people with a continuous process instead of a batch system. My sap gets automatically collected by gravity fed tubes to my tanks. From the tanks, it gets fed by gravity through the wall of my boiling room into my ROs which separate out 3/4 of the water and deposit the concentrate right into my natural gas stove-top-evaporator. At the other end of the evaporator, the almost-syrup drips out into a 5 gallon stainless steel bucket.
But it's not quite as easy as it sounds. I have to check on things every couple hours to make sure that everything is flowing smoothly. During big runs, I get up every 2 hours at night. I did this last night and will do so again tonight.
The only part of the process that is batch is boiling down the almost syrup, pressing it through the filter press and canning it into jars. My wife and I do this part together. Tomorrow will be the first day this season that we will can a batch, or maybe two batches.
Last edited by HowardR; 02-17-2022 at 08:12 PM.
680 5/16 taps on gravity
red and sugar maples
2 Homemade ROs
Stovetop evaporator
Filter press by Daryl
Star San Tube Pump
Drying rack for hydrometer
Loves tapping in snow
Very similar to my setup - basically as automated and continuous as you can get.
100 taps on 3/16 vacuum into a stainless tank which my RO draws from when it fills to a certain point and turns off when it's empty. RO feeds my head tank on my small drop flue pan set on a custom / all-stainless natural gas arch. Auto draw off into a stainless pot and a level sensor/controller to turn off the gas when head tank is empty.
Take the pot inside and check density and finish and filter thru stainless filterpress into containers.
D. Roseum
www.roseummaple.com
~100 taps on 3/16 custom temp controlled vacuum; shurflo vacuum #2; custom nat gas evap with auto-drawoff and tank level gas shut-off controller; homemade RO #1; homemade RO #2; SL SS filter press
2021: 27.1 gallons
2022: 35 gallons
Steve
SE Pennsylvania
2022 - 13 taps, RO5, 21”x24” SS pan with pre-warmer pan, backyard made wood fired 55gal drum stove - 17.25
2021 - 18 taps, RO5, 21”x24” SS pan with pre-warmer pan, backyard made wood fired 55gal drum stove - 12 pints
2020 - 13 taps, RO5, backyard made wood fired 55gal drum stove with 2 lg 6” deep pans - 6.75 pints (very warm winter)
2019 Rookie Season - 14 taps, RO5, turkey fryer with 6” deep pan - 16.5 pints
That sounds lovely. haha. I do ok with my setup.....once I get the sap to my house (my IBC tanks are on a trailer at the family farm.....trailer back 150-200+ gallons to my driveway). My RO feeds my biggest pan 3x4ft (i call this my warming pan but I do get it boiling well) which then feeds my front pan (2x3ft). If I'm good.....My RO feeds the warming pan at the exact rate i'm feeding my front pan....which keeps ups w minor adjustments to my valves. When this happens I just feed the fire every 30mins or so.
I'd like to switch to continuous but right now with work and family.....sometimes I only have time to get everything boiling, then I have to leave for kids practices for a couple hours, so I flood the pans and let them slowly steam off. Then I'll get the fire going again when I come home. It takes me a couple days sometimes working like that but it works.
Totally get it on the kids front and making the process work for the family and enjoy it (and the syrup) as much as possible. 😁
Your setup makes sense and is effective. Hopefully the weather next week doesn't ruin our season. All those consecutive warm days without a freeze are never good.
D. Roseum
www.roseummaple.com
~100 taps on 3/16 custom temp controlled vacuum; shurflo vacuum #2; custom nat gas evap with auto-drawoff and tank level gas shut-off controller; homemade RO #1; homemade RO #2; SL SS filter press
2021: 27.1 gallons
2022: 35 gallons
Last edited by HowardR; 02-18-2022 at 12:23 PM.
680 5/16 taps on gravity
red and sugar maples
2 Homemade ROs
Stovetop evaporator
Filter press by Daryl
Star San Tube Pump
Drying rack for hydrometer
Loves tapping in snow
I just finished canning last week's run. So far, I've made about 1/5 of the amount that I usually produce in a year.
Last year. the syrup was light amber through the first week of March. This year, the mid-February run was a dark amber.
680 5/16 taps on gravity
red and sugar maples
2 Homemade ROs
Stovetop evaporator
Filter press by Daryl
Star San Tube Pump
Drying rack for hydrometer
Loves tapping in snow