Who is cutting wood?

[Hugh Conway]

aka boiling off a bunch of water.

[DougW]

Sugaring = making maple syrup.

I thought that most commercial operations use reverse osmosis for maple sugar production.

[Hugh Conway]

7-8 cords of wood would likely be cottage not commercial. 160 gallons? exactly how much would that yield?

[cat in january]

glademaster that is a healthy amount of work you put in. Some woods the only way to make healthy progress is to go with the splitter.

[Meadow Skipper]

i'm just here to say that today I became a man

Fixed.

Congrats. Next: the threesome hookup.

[Generalstark]

I thought that most commercial operations use reverse osmosis for maple sugar production.

Even with RO, you still have to boil. Sap from the tree is about 2% sugar and syrup is about 66%. Small scale RO, like me, goes to 8-10% by removing 3/4 of the water so we use about 1/4 the wood. Large scale, like many thousands of taps, go as high as 26%, so considerably less wood/gallon or more likely oil/gallon.

We are adding an RO this year. Last season we boiled raw sap.

[Generalstark]

7-8 cords of wood would likely be cottage not commercial. 160 gallons? exactly how much would that yield?

Very close. We made just over 170 gallons last season. We retail it all so still cottage, but we're growing.

[DougW]

Even with RO, you still have to boil. Sap from the tree is about 2% sugar and syrup is about 66%. Small scale RO, like me, goes to 8-10% by removing 3/4 of the water so we use about 1/4 the wood. Large scale, like many thousands of taps, go as high as 26%, so considerably less wood/gallon or more likely oil/gallon.

We are adding an RO this year. Last season we boiled raw sap.

that makes sense let the RO do the bulk of work on the easy to remove water. If you jack up the recovery too high I would think you would have fouling issues.

[From_the_NEK]

what's sugaring?

Stokedwm by Tim_NEK, on Flickr



I help my neighbor with his hobby operation. Shown here is an arch (part where the fire is), and a boiling pan. This pan is a flat bottom and we figure it can boil off between 14-16 gallons or water per hour. He made 27 gallons of syrup last year and burned 4 cord of mixed hard and soft woods. We have to stoke the arch every 7-10 minutes depending on the wood that went in last. He works as a line cutter for the local power company and gets lots of free wood.
Next spring the plan is to have a fluted pan and blowers in the arch to cut down on the 1-2AM evenings of boiling during peak sap flow.

[Generalstark]

We are headed down a very deep rabbit hole here but this is what we boil with:

[Hugh Conway]

that's sexy.

[::: :::]

Fixed.

Congrats. Next: the threesome hookup.

Can I get that at the rental place? And can I tow it home?

[bodywhomper]

Sugaring looks like fun. Thanks.

[Meadow Skipper]

Fixed.

Congrats. Next: the threesome hookup.

Can I get that at the rental place? And can I tow it home?

If I read your reply with a certain amount of free association, this is what happens:
-Yes, you can:


If it floats, flies, or fucks, rent it.

[glademaster]

glademaster that is a healthy amount of work you put in. Some woods the only way to make healthy progress is to go with the splitter.

You're telling me. Took about 16-17 hours of running the hydraulic unit, with someone running the controls, another guy placing the round and tossing splits, and a third keeping the placer supplied. Great looking wood, and my entire yard is hanging heavy with the scent of cherry and apple wood. Stacking starts today.

[From_the_NEK]

We are headed down a very deep rabbit hole here but this is what we boil with:

that's sexy.

x2. Hot model you got there .

[Generalstark]

x2. Hot model you got there .

My wife calls it evaporator porn. Nothing like a room full of stainless steel.

[DougW]

My wife calls it evaporator porn. Nothing like a room full of stainless steel.

I think I see some sanitary triclamps there .. sexy

[From_the_NEK]

Wood burning sugaring operations also make for good nighttime photography subjects...

[DougW]

Finished wood for the year with 13 cords in shed should be enough for 3 years

[glademaster]

Wood burning sugaring operations also make for good nighttime photography subjects...

That photo is terrifying. No chimney should look like that. Ever.

[neufox47]

That photo is terrifying. No chimney should look like that. Ever.

What if it is a really short chimney? In boyscouts, it wasnt a good fire in our stove until we had flames coming out the top. Bugs the shit out of me i cant think of what those little cooking stoves were called.

Edit - Sheepherder

[Generalstark]

That photo is terrifying. No chimney should look like that. Ever.

Totally normal with a wood evaporator. Wouldn't be a bad idea to have a spark arrestor, but notice the metal roofing. Essential on a sugarhouse. VT isn't the desert southwest.

[glademaster]

Totally normal with a wood evaporator. Wouldn't be a bad idea to have a spark arrestor, but notice the metal roofing. Essential on a sugarhouse. VT isn't the desert southwest.

There's no baffle in the top of them to prevent flame impingement into the chimney? Why the fuck not? That's insane. Not saying I don't believe you, I am however saying that there has to be a better, safer way to design an evaporator. Do you run thermocouples in the stack to monitor flue gas temps? You must have to replace that Class A chimney every season after exposing it to heat like that.

[Generalstark]

There's no baffle in the top of them to prevent flame impingement into the chimney? Why the fuck not? That's insane. Not saying I don't believe you, I am however saying that there has to be a better, safer way to design an evaporator. Do you run thermocouples in the stack to monitor flue gas temps? You must have to replace that Class A chimney every season after exposing it to heat like that.

We're getting into that rabbit hole. I can't speak for From The NEK's neighbors setup, but with a traditional naturally aspirated wood evap., people generally use a single wall pipe, or maybe metalbestos, through a "roof jack" and are careful with their install and clearances. It is typical to see flames out the pipe. This system was developed by New England subsistence farmers in the late 1800s and has carried on through the generations, but sugarhouses burning down is, let's just say, not unusual in historical record. I suspect a hobby rig like the one shown by NEK is not reaching the high temps like a larger commercial rig, until they put a blower on it. Remember, we are trying to boil water off as fast as possible here.

My rig, pictured above, however is state of the art and instead keeps the heat under the pans instead of out the pipe. We do monitor flue gas temps, which reach 1800F under the pans, but only 800-900 in the stack. With an air tight fire box, AOF (air over fire) and AUF (air under fire), a high cfm blower and serious insulation, we achieve pretty high efficiency and a very clean burn. Notice the difference in wood consumption noted above. We can actually gasify with this rig if we tune the air flow correctly, but it won't boil as hard. We use a single wall stainless stack through a roof jack with safe clearances from combustibles in the roof, and a little ceramic blanket to be safe.

We do still get sparks out the stack but we do use a spark arrestor, and it is primarily a result of the blower, especially when we turn it up at the end of a load of wood to max the flue gas temps.

Evaporators are not wood stoves, and basically follow a different set of "rules".