It's great to hear that you are expanding your maple syrup production this year. For the evaporation phase, you might want to look into building a rocket stove. Rocket stoves are incredibly efficient because they use a secondary burn chamber to pyrolize the wood gas given off by ordinary combustion. You can build them from cans and/barrels.
Paul Wheaton, the "Duke of Permaculture" has a Kickstarter right now funding the production of 4 DVDs from video footage he took at a 3 day workshop. He has reached his initial goal, so the DVDs are going to happen (you can also just get downloads) but if he can clear $100,000 then he will (finally) be able to buy a bunch of land in his beloved Montana and start working on his permaculture dreams/schemes, like growing citrus without a greenhouse.
I recommend watching his Kickstarter video even if you will never build a rocket mass stove or even a "pocket rocket." At the end, they show themselves actually heating iron to the red hot, workable point with just a rocket stove: no coal or charcoal, no fan. Also, it's funny.
Julia
It's great to hear that you are expanding your maple syrup production this year. For the evaporation phase, you might want to look into building a rocket stove. Rocket stoves are incredibly efficient because they use a secondary burn chamber to pyrolize the wood gas given off by ordinary combustion. You can build them from cans and/barrels.
Paul Wheaton, the "Duke of Permaculture" has a Kickstarter right now funding the production of 4 DVDs from video footage he took at a 3 day workshop. He has reached his initial goal, so the DVDs are going to happen (you can also just get downloads) but if he can clear $100,000 then he will (finally) be able to buy a bunch of land in his beloved Montana and start working on his permaculture dreams/schemes, like growing citrus without a greenhouse.
I recommend watching his Kickstarter video even if you will never build a rocket mass stove or even a "pocket rocket." At the end, they show themselves actually heating iron to the red hot, workable point with just a rocket stove: no coal or charcoal, no fan. Also, it's funny.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/wood-burning-stoves-20-the-dvds?ref=search
Julia
Oops, that was supposed to be cans and/or barrels.