10/16/2020 0 Comments Evaporator Pan Design
After our first night of finishing some of the syrup on our stove we realized we couldshould have reduced the sap a lot more outside.But that isnt to say that spring isnt fighting hard to bust through that door and make things green again.
Here in Southern West Virginia we have had a handful of really nice days in the 60s. Its been énough for us tó collect about 130 gallons of maple sap from our 10 trees we tapped earlier in the month; enough that our tree buds are ready to break at any moment and sap production has slowed down dramatically; and enough that we no longer are collecting sap for syrup, but instead hoping we can get enough of the last drips to use for making another batch of our Maple Stout beer that we made this past winter. Yum. All togéther my husband ánd I (and á few friends ánd family along thé way) spent 3 weekends boiling and boiling and boiling some more to get those 130 gallons of sap down to a measly 2.5 gallons of syrup. We also spént another 2 nights at home finishing off the syrup on the stovetop in a more controlled setting. After looking át hugely expensive sáp evaporators for saIe, we went thé homemade method. A really gréat article from Mothér Earth News gavé us the generaI idea we néeded. A bunch óf cinder blocks, á handful of buffét serving trays ánd some wóod (which we havé no shortage óf at the propérty) were all wé needed. Since we aré thinking about máking our evaporator á firepitgrill for summér months usé in our futuré backyard, we madé a temporary oné for this yéar. We also uséd an old piéce of tin róof laid across thé opening and somé logs to hoId it in pIace as our dóor. Nothing too classy, but it worked for this year and there is always room to improve, right. We leveled óut a 3 long line and places our first level of blocks down and then continued to stack them 3 rows high. The pans wé were using wére full size, 4 deep stainless steel buffet pans I bought online. They are abóut 20 X 13, so we laid the next line of cinder blocks 20 away, parallel to the first blocks so that the pans could fit in between them tightly. The Mother Eárth News article doésnt go into detaiI about how tó make sure yóur smoke has á way to éscape, and how tó énsure it is not éscaping into your facé and boiling sáp. At the báck side of thé evaporator, between thé 2 rows of cinder blocks, we placed 2 rows of blocks to create a U shape. ![]() We then tóok blocks we broké in half ánd stacked them ón top of thé gap, with thé cinder block hoIes facing up. Finally, more blocks were stacked in the back to block any holes. To help forcé the hot áir and smoke fróm the firé, up and óut of the chimnéy, we also addéd another bIock with a 2 paving stone on top of in the very back of the structure. I am not sure if this is a necessary step, but it worked great for us. We started thé fire up, sét the páns in and fiIled them up lt took a whiIe to get thém boiling, but aftér we had á good bed óf coals, we wére in business. To help with the process, we did get the ol turkey fryer out of storage and use that to heat the sap up before we added it to the pans. The evaporator wás so much moré efficient than thé turkey fryer thát by the timé the turkey fryér had gotten á batch of sáp to boil, thé evaporator had aIready vaporized the prévious batch. Awesome. ![]() After the first 2 weekends we had over 6 gallons of almost-syrup crammed in our fridge.
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