RMH Maple Sap Evaporator?

Has anyone thought about building a RMH for doing maple syrup?  I had thought about some day getting into it at my place, but I've got no inclinations to make mountains of firewood to cook down my sap.  However, if i could adapt an RMH to host a basin at the top of the barrel, I'd have to imagine this would seriously cut down the amount of wood needed to produce a unit of syrup.  

Hi Christopher,
Living in the northeast, I have thought of this quit a bit... but never had the chance to build one. Technically for evaporation you just want the R from the RMH. In this use case, we just want that hot efficient burn... we don't really need to store the heat in a mass for later.

I have see a few on youtube, so I know it is possible... but I do not have the expertise to give you more than that. This is just something until the really smart guys get here.

Yes there are lots of post already on the forum, just type in Permies Maple Sap Evaporator into google and there plenty of forum links.

There are off-the-shelf rocket cook stoves that would be perfect for this.

Amazon link to an example - I'm not recommending this particular model, but this is very similar to the one I have (although I got mine at a fraction of the price many years ago).

I have a model somewhat similar to this for camping and I have cooked breakfast - egg and bacon rolls - for 50 people on a pair of them. They require a large supply of dry (essential) sticks, or better still seasoned firewood split down to kindling size. They are very rockety, throwing out a LOT of heat. The fire requires continual tending - the sticks burn through very fast and need monitoring to maintain a somewhat steady heat. That may or may not be suitable for sap boiling, I've no direct experience of the maple syrup making side. It can make something like frying eggs pretty tricky.

My instinct is that it would be good to have a stove of some sort that needs less regular feeding, and can take larger feedstock - even if it is slightly less optimal in terms of efficiency of combustion. Adapting some kind of batch rocket burner might be easier from a labour point of view.

I'm working on one for a 2'x4' pan.  Not totally satisfied with the design yet, but I'm getting 1800F at the outlet of the 8" riser so I'm close

https://permies.com/t/266511/BTU-hour-tube

Hi Davis,
Do you have any pictures to share?

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Davis,
Do you have any pictures to share?

yes, check out my last post in the thread above

can you see the Google Photos links?

I see them now. I don't tend to click external links to stuff. If you attach them directly to the post, I'd love to see them. And either way, I'd love to hear how it works out.

Matt McSpadden wrote:I see them now. I don't tend to click external links to stuff. If you attach them directly to the post, I'd love to see them. And either way, I'd love to hear how it works out.

I uploaded some photos - hopefully you can see them here: https://permies.com/t/266511/BTU-hour-tube#2865344