Yes and no.
You do NOT want a roaring fire under your sap. That will caramelize the sugars. You need it hot enough to evaporate but not to boil. There are things you can do to increase heat efficiency like building baffles around your fire or bed of coles/embers to contain heat under your evaporator leaving just enough gaps to allow some oxygen in to feed it. Once you have a hot bed established, since you don’t want a raging fire, you can simply give it occasional cut branches. You don’t need seasoned logs.
That is why I said it really just takes patience.
Wow, sounds like lots of first-hand personal experience speaking there, Z3n.
I LOVE honest pure maple syrup. Mom put maple syrup on cottage cheese when I was a kid, probably to make it palatable to a youngster. I still remember how good that was.
I made crumpets for the first time yesterday using my sourdough starter discard. They are a cross between a pancake and an English muffin. I had jam on the first one, but tried maple syrup on the second one. That was REALLY good.
Couldn’t be much easier — just the discard, salt, sugar and baking soda.