Maple syrup

Anyone else tapping? It's my first year, I'm boiling down now on an outside woodstove but it's only steaming not boiling.  It has a great color & the fire is really hot, but no boiling,  anyone else experience similar?

Liked your video and subscribed. I tapped for the first time ever here in southern Mo. I only have three maple trees that I have found so far on my property I bought 2 years ago. I got 2 gallons of sap and ended up with 1 cup more or less of syrup, but its good stuff. Check out my other post, I have a video of the tapping (sorry about the sound though). I think that I am defiantly hook and want to build a small evaporator, it will make a nice addition when I build my outdoor kitchen on my new homestead.

I'd say you are loosing too much heat to the sides of the pot. usually you would choose a larger more shallow pot to maximize your footprint on the stove and minimize your heat losses. You could also cut a hole and inset the pot, seal any gaps with a quick plaster seal.  If that is you only pot try filling it half way or less and dripping it in to make up losses. As the concentration of sugar increases it becomes easier to keep a boil. Have fun, it is very addictive both the syrup and the process...

David

David's right on.  Evaporators do best when they have maximum surface area between the sap and the fire, minimal surface area on the sides to cold air, hottest fire you can make and direct contact from the flames on the pan bottom (no stove steel in between).

Given that you're likely not going to rebuild your rig mid-season, I'd run the sap really low in that pan.  Maybe 1 to 1.5" deep.  That should boil decently.  You'll have to add sap way more often but it should boil faster overall.  If a steam table pan (hotel buffet pan) would fit on your stove that would be a cheap way to upgrade.  Split you wood to wrist sized and aim for the firebox to be about half wood and half air space.  Criss cross the wood for lots of air flow.  I feed wood into my rig about every 7 minutes but I'm using mainly softwood.  Hardwood may increase that to 10-15 min but I'm not sure.  You want a fire that you'd never want in your wood stove in your basement.  Having a grate to let the ashes drop down and keep air able to go under the fire is also very helpful.

Good luck and enjoy the sweetness!

William, thank you I will watch the video in a bit when I have more charge in my battery.

Hmm very good point David

Mike ty so much I actually did get a buffet pan a long while ago just for that reason! I completely forgot about it wow. I will try it ty so mucho

So glad I joined =)

I think these guys are right, and thanks for your input, I also used a stock pot and could not get it to boil, even in the house, till it got down to the sugar. I know better than to boil gallons and gallons in the house.
Mike Jay, that pretty much how I plan on building my evaporator. I plan on building the base out of cob that the restaurant pan will drop down in st the fire will be around all sides. I've seen some pretty good plans on Youtube too.
Thanks and God bless.

I used the buffet pan and it worked wonderfully! Alot of wood and work but soo delicious,  reminds me of graham crackers oddly enough thank you so much for the help