I have ordered a ceramic blanket, it should arrive Tuesday. I will see if I can tuck it under the bracket between the bracket and the fire brick and then up and around the top.
I reconnected the couplers on the float box, there was one gasket obviously out of place. Hopefully both now with be sap tight.
My plastic head tank stores fluid in the legs and I was a little worried about it all coming out, but I did some rednecking snd it work great, it drained all of the water out.
I think my boil rate was 11 gal per hour, maybe a hair better.
I really liked how little smoke the whole setup had. Almost none, big difference from last year.
I mentioned before I liked how it boiled hard the whole length of the channels, last year with my five steam pans, it was hard to get the last two pans to boil.
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.