homemade maple sugar evaporator with pics

[SPIKER]

I think green thumb may have hit the nail on the head there all the FIRE is up front but really that is where the wood & fire meet the HEAT is moving towards the stack due to the draw, slowing the draw as much as possible will help with that a lot. also with the wood consumption. the hottest fire possible is good for speed but not for even heat distribution. My pan is one big pan, I didn't put in any dividers figuring I could add them later. I also don't have a STACK as the heat is vented all around the pan sides and out. very little smoke using dry wood but every now and again it gets a bit of ash stirred into the syrup (it is filtered 2 times after the first boil anyway and so far it has tasted GREAT.) Not sure why but every one that has had some said it is the best they EVER had & I tend to agree, go figure? so far I havn't had to contend with birds though luckily hahaha.

mark M

 

[markct]

it is lined with firebrick in the bottom and up the curved sides halfway, i will have to try adding a firebrick standing up in the back to try and slow down the rush of fire out the stack, it did seem to boil better with the damper closed partway, i was afraid to close it off too much, but i dont know how ya would know or what would happen if i closed it too much. sap is flowing from one tree i tried tapping since its january thaw here so i may tap a few and see if i can try it, i know they will only flow a week or so before it gets cold again but i was gona try it

 

[markct]

well i tried my evaporator again, added a firebrick baffle to the back and tried burining cut up pallet wood which was good and dry and had much better results, fast boiling and even heat. i was wondering about since its not supposed to stay warm days cold nights till spring obviosly, do i pull the taps out when it stops flowing and drill new holes in spring, or leave them, i know people talk about redrilling the holes if it doesnt flow for a week or so, but do ya just run the drill thru and clean out the same hole or drill a new one in a different place on the tree?

 

[greenthumb]

you can leave the taps in, they will be fine and begin to run when mother nature decides she is good and ready. The less stress on the tree the better with tap holes. Glad to hear things are working better. Now you know the next step of making syrup is to constantly think you need to expand your operation.

 

[greenthumb]

sorry didn't finish the above thought. You can leave the taps in they most likely will run again. Remember some trees run better than others. I have some trees that can be running one day like a faucet and others dry as a bone the same day. Than the next day it all changes. A maple tree will run when it's ready. If you don't see sap for a week or so you may want to hit the same hole with the tip of the bit and see if that works.

 

[markct]

thanks greenthumb, i have been using the smaller 5/16 "health spouts" on my trees, what a great thing they came up with! ya can drill the smaller holes easily with a cordless drill and they are supposed to heal alot faster too. i have about 20 buckets up, well milk jugs to be exact, and put tubing onto about 10 trees. the first warm day it overflowed some of the buckets and the same the second day but then the weather changed and i havent gotten hardly anything, its only been in the low 30s at night and up into the 40s and 50s in the day. hopefully that will change again soon. alot of places around here have tapped there trees.

 

[MikeD74T]

markct, In post #4 I suggested an oil burner fan. The reason a forced air fire works so well is that's what is needed to get the heat out of the charcoal after the gas has burned off the wood. You may have noticed that the boiling increases just after you add wood then slows down when there's just coals, even when there's a good bed of coals. The forced draft increases the radiant heat to the pan bottom which is much hotter than the burning gases. Also with a forced draft the moisture in the air is converted into hydrogen & carbon monoxide both of which are excellent fuels. This conversion is limited in a natural draft device, which is why forges use forced draft. Try the blower or even a hair drier, it's cheap, you'll be impressed, & you'll make more syrup in less time. MikeD74T

 

[dimeoa]

markct:

That is EXACTLY what I am looking for for a little backyard sugaring of my own.

Interested in building another one?

Contact me: dimeoalbert@yahoo.com

Thanks,

Al

 

[moeh1]

Mark,
You are having the fun I wish I had time for- several maple trees are waiting for me to find time to make it happen. I'm researching the use of reverse osmosis filters to reduce the amount of water in the raw syrup. RO filters aren't awfully expensive, but I don't have an actual setup in mind yet to make it work. Anybody got more experience with these to add anything on a small scale version?

 

[SPIKER]

moheh1:

the RO units work well but they are not the conventional ones used for making water clean. the DUMP cycle is different and it only lets water trough and dumps the water, the sugar is sent back by back flushing it some how. I have seen them used do not use one for myself though. The expense is pretty high on one which will make a good bunch of syrup but to pay for one is a long term investment and has a very long payback if you are not going to be taping hundreds of trees every year.

After this was started last year now I ended up modifying my pan and added 3 dividers to it and made some good stuff last year so much that I'm bypassing making any this year. not to mention my block pan/fire pit have pretty much had it after all the hot fires last spring. Next year I will have made up a much nicer pit, (steel fire box) with a work area. will get making that here in next few months if things dont get to crazy with the economy.

something I learn last spring, was that burning good wood is required when the smoke can/may get around the sap/syrup, I made 4 or 5 batches last spring and in the middle I burnt some old slightly damp popular in there was bad choice as that batch was slightly off flavored. the next batch was all maple, red elm & cherry as was most of the others, which did not have the off flavor. I was able to taste it in the sap when it was 1/2 ~2/3 cooked down and switched wood after tasting it, it even tasted similar to what the smoke smelt like "OFF" smelling...

here is some boiling going on last spring (feb-2008), there are more images on photobucket of this system.

Pan ~42" x 46" x 8"

pan showing the added dividers, notice the boiling is much more intense around the dividers
as they bring more of the heat into the sap. this pan holds about 40 gallons of sap with out boiling over.

you can also see the simple somewhat reusable block/brick fire pit I used, I have burnt a LOT of fires in there lots of BBQ and have used the same one since I owned the property 8 years now and it was up in use for who knows how long prior. BBQ was not too bad on it as it was only burning for one good cooking, making the syrup was much harder on it but it still lasted 3 years worth. Boiling sap all day with constant hot fire over heated the brick/blocks and pretty much left them too bad to use them this year which was part of reason I wasn't going to make any this spring. dont have time energy to replace the pit but will have to next year for sure as I'll probably be out of the good stuff...

Mark