welp, I just spent as much on a maple syrup evaporator as many people spend on used cars O_O
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...and before any of you aspirational not-actually-on-a-farm-but-want-to-tweet-about-farm-crap give me static: I boiled sap before on a $5 rig I welded up from scrap bedframes. Yeah, I know it can be done cheaper. I CHOOSE, with my own damned money, to do this.
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My $5 rig run was: a wireframe "table" of welded angle iron, surrounded on 3 sides by dry stacked cinderblocks, covered w cheap roasting pans. Built fire underneath. Was very dicey to put more wood in, to add sap, to pour out sap. Also lots of fine ash landed in the syrup.
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I earn decent money, so I chose to take a week's wages and turn the knob to 11. Pre-heater. Float valve on pre-heater. Premium pan w corrugated bottom to increase surface area. Stainless steel sides. Pre-cut firebricks. Sightglass to check sap level. etc.
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I'm also putting it in a 12' x 12' shed I had the farmhands build, atop a bed of gravel and a concrete-and-rebar pad that I and the hands poured. ...and shed has 12" wide pine siding, bc "F U, that's how I want it".pic.twitter.com/CI6r0W2Zlp
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I did the math. Even if we collect 200 gallons of sap per year, boil down to 4 gal syrup, and do so every year for 30 years, it will just barely break even w cost of buying syrup. But I enjoy looking out at nice land, outbuildings, tools. So there.
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I flip through the stewmac catalog with lust in my heart.
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