Maple syrup

[Natty Bumppo]

My pans are 10 inches deep and i always keep at a minimum 6 in them to keep from scorching the sides.

Sap depth and evaporation rates are inversely related....the lower the depth in the pan, the higher the evaporation rate. One, if you're depth is 4, 5, 6" or so, much more of the energy in the wood (or propane) is being consumed just to keep that huge volume of sap at boiling temps. You can boil a lower depth with less wood and less time. Also, the surface area to volume ratio plays a role. With a huge volume of sap in a pan, the water molecules have to move that much farther to evaporate. With 1.5 to 2" you get very quick evaporation rates with less wood.

Boiling at a low depth though has risk. I know a few guys who will push their evap. rates by boiling at 3/4". You've got to be very careful though. Any lapse in concentration and you'll get a burned pan. The high sides of a sap pan are simply to keep all of the boiling sap inside, not to fill it up.

I boil on a little 2x4' hobby evaporator and run anywhere from 1" to 1 and 1/2" inches.

 

[Bill Loser]

Makes sense. I've always been afraid to burn my pans ,thatswby i kept it deeper.

Besides, its hard to focus when your a 12pack in!

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Makes sense. I've always been afraid to burn my pans ,thatswby i kept it deeper.

Besides, its hard to focus when your a 12pack in!

LOL! One of the best parts of sugaring!

 

[chucker66]

Thanks for the tips Natty. Keeping my pan at 2" Its a 2'x2' pan so thats about 5 gallons. Boiling like crazy. Nothing like boiling sap and watching the NCAA Wrestling Tournament

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Thanks for the tips Natty. Keeping my pan at 2" Its a 2'x2' pan so thats about 5 gallons. Boiling like crazy. Nothing like boiling sap and watching the NCAA Wrestling Tournament

You bet chucker! Glad to hear you're boiling!

I have yet to boil. STILL waiting for my buckets to thaw and the sap to run again. Thinking this weekend I may get to fire up the evaporator.

 

[Bill Loser]

I really wish i could switch with you natty. Warm weather is coming and this weekend will be the end here. Im just hoping for a couple more days of good run so i can at least get close to my 14 gallon goal. This is.fast becoming my favorite time of the year, hate to see it end.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

I really wish i could switch with you natty. Warm weather is coming and this weekend will be the end here. Im just hoping for a couple more days of good run so i can at least get close to my 14 gallon goal. This is.fast becoming my favorite time of the year, hate to see it end.

I agree. I enjoy this time of year. Was FINALLY able to boil for the first time today. Collected 65 frozen blocks of ice and about 30 gallons of sap on the first run. Fired the evaporator up started boiling and melting the chunks of ice.

On our second trip to the sugarbush with the snowmobile my son and I had about 40 gallons of sap....and the Jet Sled with our 55 gallon collecting tank on it tipped over and we lost about 30 gallons. Ah...the joys of this hobby. I got over it eventually. Too nice of a day to let that ruin t for me.

 

[Bill Loser]

Nothing worse than wasting sap! I cry when i trip in the woods and loose a couple ounces.
Boiling is going ok here. Have a couple tweaks to make with the new stove. First and foremost a solid attachment for a blower fan. Got something rigged for now , wow what a difference. Second i will need to raise my pans at least 4 inches up. An unanticipated side effect of running lower sap levels is scorching the sides of my pans. I believe thos is due to the fire getting to high up the sides. Other than those 2 things the new stove works good. I wont post pics because its not cleaned up and painted. When the seasons over ill finish it right and post a pic or 2.
Natty, curious what your boil rate is with that setup? I have an idea of where im at and not sure if its good or not.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Nothing worse than wasting sap! I cry when i trip in the woods and loose a couple ounces.
Boiling is going ok here. Have a couple tweaks to make with the new stove. First and foremost a solid attachment for a blower fan. Got something rigged for now , wow what a difference. Second i will need to raise my pans at least 4 inches up. An unanticipated side effect of running lower sap levels is scorching the sides of my pans. I believe thos is due to the fire getting to high up the sides. Other than those 2 things the new stove works good. I wont post pics because its not cleaned up and painted. When the seasons over ill finish it right and post a pic or 2.
Natty, curious what your boil rate is with that setup? I have an idea of where im at and not sure if its good or not.

Yes, with less sap in the pan if you have flames licking the sides I can see how you'd get some scorching. Looking forward to some pics later on.

My unit will do about 12 to 13 gallons per hour. I don't have a blower. And I do have a small little pre-heater that sits on top. The wood I use is insanely dry spruce, fir, and hemlock and I get a nice rolling boil. Today I wanted to finish the last 15 gallons of sap I had quickly and I dropped the level to 3/4". Went through it in just over an hour, but that's not typical.

 

[Bill Loser]

Im using mostly 3 year old ash this year. Im getting 7 to 10 gallons an hour if my calcs are right. I was hoping for more but what im seeing is i start off going gang busters and as my coal bed starts building it gets slower and slower. I would think it would be the opposite as it's all red hot coals . Its got to be an air flow issue. Which would also be fixed some by lifting my pans up.

 

[bjseiler]

Is everything in your sugar shack sticky or does it clean down ok?

 

[chucker66]

Finished my season yesterday,. Ended up with 5 gallons total which is a new high for me. The last batch cooking at 2" depth really went fast as I was usually trying to boil 15 gallons at a time vs 5. Not too bad considering I only tap 24 trees.

Chuck

 

[Apple Junkie]

I love everything about your sugar shack Natty.

 

[cavey]

Went to by a simple HD lightly used stainless 2'x4'x6"ish pan ... the guy is my neighbor, told him my plans of baffling it and he said.... "well maybe if your interested in a baffled one follow me".... 5 min later I now own that small pan and a larger 4'x6' ish baffled pan with dual draw offs off the front and the stainless steel steam hood, piping, the steam vent stack, the arches with HD grating for forced air. I'm hoping the fire bricks are sitting there too - Pics to follow.... but next year will be interesting.

My other neighbor quit sapping on my land and left up all the main and branch lines for me.... I will have a gravity fed system to a collection point. Have one 325 gallon poly tank I could use. Getting the sap out of the valley will be the trick. But It looks like in the near future I will be tappin and sappin!

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Is everything in your sugar shack sticky or does it clean down ok?

Nothing in the sugar shack is sticky at all. Been in there for about 10 years now. When you boil mostly you are just evaporating off the water and the sugar is left behind. There is probably some sugar in the steam, bit minimal. Where I do get some stickiness is when I spill some sap (or worse...syrup) and it dries.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

I love everything about your sugar shack Natty.

Thanks Apple Junkie.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Went to by a simple HD lightly used stainless 2'x4'x6"ish pan ... the guy is my neighbor, told him my plans of baffling it and he said.... "well maybe if your interested in a baffled one follow me".... 5 min later I now own that small pan and a larger 4'x6' ish baffled pan with dual draw offs off the front and the stainless steel steam hood, piping, the steam vent stack, the arches with HD grating for forced air. I'm hoping the fire bricks are sitting there too - Pics to follow.... but next year will be interesting.

My other neighbor quit sapping on my land and left up all the main and branch lines for me.... I will have a gravity fed system to a collection point. Have one 325 gallon poly tank I could use. Getting the sap out of the valley will be the trick. But It looks like in the near future I will be tappin and sappin!

Boy does that sound sweet! Ain't that the truth...sometimes the hardest part of sugarin' is getting the sap from the sugarbush to the sugar house.

 

[chucker66]

Carrying 5 gallon buckets has been my Spring workout.

 

[cavey]

Carrying 5 gallon buckets has been my Spring workout.

Did that for years working as a kid for a farm west of town. He had a little woods with about 1200 taps we would put in each year. Hang bags and walk around tree to tree and dump them in five gallon pails and walk them to an old tractor drawn spreader with a tank. Dump them in one at a time and back off to the trees. Thought it was a cool spring job, Gib would give us Shafer's beer because he could buy it cheaper than pop. I was 16 years old we thought we were king $#!()'s! Hell of a work out!

 

[cavey]

Boy does that sound sweet! Ain't that the truth...sometimes the hardest part of sugarin' is getting the sap from the sugarbush to the sugar house.

There are roughly 80 taps in, with only a third of the bowl tapped. We just logged and left that area pretty untouched. If I wanted the extra work it would be easy to tap out the rest of the maples in there. There is an old farm road big enough to drive a truck down to the bottom. I could transfer up to a town road but that would get tricky with traffic. I will most likely put chains on something and bring up the sap. I just want a hobby to mess around with with my son as he gets older.