[Syrupmakers] evaporator pan

[Tracy Baudoin (tbaudoin)]

Jay,
You'll probably get lots of answers to this one...here's my 2 cents.

It really depends on the height of your sides.  The sides of my
rectangular pan are 12in. on 3 sides and 11in. on the 4th, allowing me
to hang a gutter for initial skimming.  The short side is also tapered
inward as it goes to the bottom in order to prevent scorching, as you
state.  With this much juice, I still have 1-1/2 to 2in. of syrup when
finished and have never had a problem with scorching.  

If you tilt the pan while cooking, you WILL scorch the thinnest area, so
I don't recommend doing this.  So, if your sides are say, 6in. tall and
you expect 6:1 boiling (avg), you should still have 1in. of syrup (just
lower the fire when it starts to foam.)  However, in the beginning of
the season, or with some cane varieties that produce less, you may end
up with 8 or even 10:1, which could be hard to do with 6in. sides (Less
initial juice).

That all said, taller sides means less surface area per given volume of
juice, which equates to longer cooking time.  It's all a matter of
experimentation...I started out with 12in. sides because I figured I
could always cut them down, or not fill the pan to the brim, but I've
found that I can put up with the additional boil-time.  I've even
learned how to add an additional 10-15 gallons of juice once the initial
batch has boiled down enough.  This may also be an option for you.  The
trick is to stop the boiling (bring the batch down to at least
135-150F), pour in the additional juice and keep it at that temp for a
15-30 minutes...the scum will float back to the surface and you can skim
and begin boiling again.  Skimming every 15-30 minutes after that is
also a good idea.

Tracy Baudoin
Houma, LA
Sugarcane



-----Original Message-----
From: syrupmakers-bounces at syrupmakers.net
[mailto:syrupmakers-bounces at syrupmakers.net] On Behalf Of jay shumpert
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2008 8:56 AM
To: Syrupmakers at syrupmakers.net
Subject: [Syrupmakers] evaporator pan

Hello To all,
I have a question about a rect. shaped evap. pan. If
after evaporating most of the water off of the juice,
don't you have to tilt the pan to make the remaining
juice run to 1 end. It seems that after cooking off
approx 90% of the amount that you started with that
there would not even be enough left to cover the bott.
of the pan, & it would scorch. This will be my first
year at making syrup. I really have found this forum
very helpful. I'm sure that I'll have a lot of
questions as I go along.
Thanks to all,
Jay

Jay


 
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