With the warm weather CT is about to have I'm wondering if I should drain and refrigerate my sweetened 2x3 pan? I won't be boiling again until Friday night (if my sap is still good).
Sweetened pan and warm weather
With the warm weather CT is about to have I'm wondering if I should drain and refrigerate my sweetened 2x3 pan? I won't be boiling again until Friday night (if my sap is still good).
16x20 sugar house
2x3 mason evaporator
Mule 610 sap hauler
2016 - 2x3 Mason 50 buckets - 5 gallons
2017 - 2x3 Mason 70 on 3/16, 15 buckets - 17 gallons
2023 - 2x6 Corsair with Raised flue, SSRS, and forced air, 300 taps
I always protect my concentrate when I don't boil for more than 3 days
41.457 x -72.907 148 elevation
2x4 wood fired evaporator with the "Hercules Blower"
hybrid pan and backflip preheater by Smoky Lake
103 taps. 44 on gravity
All sugar Maples
7" filter press
10 x 12 sugar shack
two very helpful kids
a wife that thinks I'm nuts
https://youtu.be/7MiY8qzBKk8
https://www.wunderground.com/persona...d?ID=KCTCHESH7
Been a couple of days and I won't boil until tomorrow. I just went out and fired up the arch, brought my sweetened pan up to a boil and shut it down. Doing that every couple of days should keep it.
1980 - 6 taps, stone fire pit, drain pan evaporator, 1 pint of syrup
2016 - 55 taps on 3/16 and gravity, new sugar shack, 2x3 Mason XL, 16 gallons of syrup
2017 - 170 taps on 3/16, 2x4 Mason XL, NextGen RO. 50 gallons of syrup
2018 - 250+ taps on gravity and buckets, 2x5 Smokey Lake arch and Beaverland pan.
2019 - 250+ taps on gravity. A few buckets. 35 gallons of syrup.
2020 - 300+ taps on gravity. 50 gallons of syrup.
2021 - 280 taps on gravity and 40 buckets. 35 gallons of syrup.
I reduced down my pans as low as i could go safely two days ago and then combined them into 3 of my 5 pans and boiled last night.. Today I'm going to boil down into just one or two of my finish pans. I hate to use up the sweet, but I would hate it more if i lost it.
2016 - 36 Taps - File Cabinet Arch + Food Pans
2017 - 2.5'x10' drop flues - 3/16 Natural Vacuum - 122 Taps
2018 - 16x20 Sugar Shack - 3/16 Natural Vacuum - 235 Taps
I ended up draining my pan and saved the sweet in 2 5 gal SS kegs. I am using this opportunity to clean my pan and make some changes to my oil tank evaporator since I can't get full boil and full GPH with my new 2x4 Smoky Lake Hybrid pan. My syrup tatses good, just a little darker than I would like. If the weather lasts I will be back up and ready for the next run.
Stiets, what gph are you getting on the hybrid pan. This is our first year with the 2x4 SL hybrid pan and homemade arch. I've only gotten about 320 gals thru it and we are cooking around 15 gph. I'm pretty happy with that as we have no preheater and we are using natural draft. I think if we make those improvements we could hit 20 gph.
Stiets, how did you clean your pan. I filled mine with vinegar and water and soaked it. Then I drained the vinegar and refilled it 3x with plan water, draining it each time. I used a small wet dry vac to suck the fluid out of the flues. Just wondering how others are doing this.
I always left my evaporator full all season, made sure when I shutdown everything was overfilled then then boiled good, never had a problem even sitting for 4 or 5 days late season. Well this year I boiled Thursday night, then when I went to boil Saturday it seems that the warm weather in the 70s Friday made all the sweet turn to gooey stringy crap. Heard of it happening but never had it happen. Took the whole evaporator apart and steam cleaned it, then boiled a few hours Sunday with just water hopefully I got everything out, plan to boil again today
11x29 sugarhouse
2x8 airtight arch homemade with waterloo flue pan, welded syrup pan and parallel flow preheater hood
250gph cdl ro
1100+ taps for 2014, approx 1000 of them vac
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Crowh...5582993?ref=hl
We are getting 10 - 12 gph. 15 if I run my blower and add thin split wood every 7-10 mins. The syrup pan and the front few inches of the flues boil like crazy. I can't get full boil in the back of the flues like they do on videos posted of the same pan with natural air flow. I used the old oil tank evaporator we had for the 2x4 flat single batch pan we were using last year. It has a 6" stove pipe coming off the back wall with an elbow. I am not sure if that is not enough air flow and it is restricting me when I don't have the blower on. And or its the stove pipe coming out the back wall and not out the top of the evaporator right behind the pan. I did not have a damper in the stove pipe before but installed one yesterday to see if that make a difference to hold back some of the heat when the blower is on. I am almost thinking the blower is to strong and blowing all the heat out, just a thought.Originally Posted by lyford
What size stove pipe do you have?
Right now I just have the pan emptied and washed out everything I could. I plan to use a 50/50 vinegar water mix to soak the caked up materials in the syrup pan. I think I pull of the pan and hose it out good. I did buy some acid cleaner from a vendor at the annual CT Maple Producer meeting but don't want to use that till the end of the season.
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