Thinking about adding RO

[Maple Flats]

I do not know much about RO. Anyone give a short starter brief? I have no heat at the sugarhouse and need to generate my own elec, what would I need to plan?

[mountain van]

You'll need- ro- stainless or plastic tank for sap and one for premeate( left over water used to clean/rinse membranes)- building with heat so membranes do not freeze( I built a 6*8 insulated shed for my 250gal/hr ro. r-25 walls, r-36 ceiling, r-19 floor, low e window, 220 electric for ro{40 amp for ro} plus normal lights sockets, in and out. inside stays 60 even below 0 with a small ceramic heater.) Prefilters, ro soap, etc. Not a small investment! Good luck. Any questions feel free to ask.

[brookledge]

If you are looking to run an RO with a generator you will need atleast a 10KW and probably a 15KW which is more than your average homeowner 5kW. Probably run around $3,000. and then fuel to run it. Or if you have a tractor you could buy a pto generator for $1,000 to 1,500. Another idea is to put the ro at another location like your house. and haul the sap back and forth. Once you have concentrate you will not have to make many trips.
Keith

[Al]

That's what one of the sugaring operations did here. His wife bought him a RO for Christmas. His sugarhouse wasn't heated so he installed it in his celler. Now he just hauls it back to the sugarhouse. How about that for a wife? Still won't trade mine in thou. I mean my wife. :D

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Al,

Don't worry, your wife probably will get you one next year or the following. Good thing you did all that expansion on the sugarhouse! :D 8O :wink:

[gearpump]

I am getting to know all to well about the prep work for getting an RO. I have been working the last two weeks on building " the little room" inside my new sugarhouse. I just got the strip heaters hooked up today and got it nice and toasty inside so I could paint the walls and ceiling. Tues. or Weds. the new machine should arrive and all my hard work will pay off. With the price of fuel oil rising this investment is looking better everyday!

Marty

[Al]

Nope. Maybe a new tractor with a cab thou! :D

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

A new tractor would be great, ship me down the old one and I will buy it off of you! :D :D

[mountainvan]

What do tractors have to do with ro's? Run the pumps off of the pto?

[Al]

Nope. Just a side comment to a friend.
Take care

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Got a brochure from Bascoms today and it is really nice. The big thing I noticed is on the inside cover is a really neat RO machine. It is new for 2006 from Leader and it is up to 500 taps and is 35 to 50 gph.

Pretty cool and it looks like a child could operate it as it looks much simpler than a normal one! :D

[mapleman3]

it says "affordable" Man.. $4400. isn't affordable for the smaller guy.. when you figure you still need to keep it heated too. theres gotta be a way to build one that is reliable for a quarter of the cost.. if you look at it in the picture it seems real simple.





BUT THATS IF YOU LIKE RO 8O :wink:

[NH Maplemaker]

Airablo has an in-line gravity-feed ro like this also! The problem with this type of ro is, if your boiling rate is more than 35 to 50 gph the ro is doing nothing! Because it is between your holding tank and evaporator.It works as you are boiling.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

The nice thing about the new Leader RO is that it is gravity flow as I assume the others aren't :?: Due to it's small size, it would be easily moveable if the sugarhouse wasn't heated and likely would run off of 110 instead of 220. :?:

Don't know much about them, just thinking aloud. :?

[Russell Lampron]

Just a few facts about the new Leader RO. The 35 to 50 gph is the amount of raw sap it will process. The amount of concentrate produced would be roughly 1/4 of that. If the boiling rate of your evaporator is more than 10 gals per hour the RO wouldn't produce enough concentrate to keep up with the evaporator. If you had 500 gals of sap to process (which is possible with 500 taps) at peak efficiency it would take 10 hours to run it through the RO. Most of the time the raw sap is colder than the temp where manufactures set there gph numbers which means you would probably be closer to the 35gph number.

Anyone thinking of buying an RO machine needs to get one that will produce enough concentrate to be equal to or more than what their evaporator will boil in an hour.

Russ

[powerdub]

I have to agree with you Russ. It seems a little on the slow side. Even after four hours of run time you only get fifty gallons of concentrate to work with. Thats a pretty steep price for what you get.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

So true guys, but you could also make close to 1 gph on a 2'x3' flat pan hobby evaporator. 8O :wink: :wink: :wink:

It would be as good or better than a 2x6 8O :wink: :wink:

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

I'll give you a simpler idea- Go to the nearest sugarhouse that has an R.O. and give them $20 for the membrane that they are going to throw out/Build yourself a membrane canister and pipe it up and make your own gravity R.O. maybe even add on a pump to back flush the whole system at the end of the day. This would be even cheaper?? 8)

[mapleman3]

is it worth the $$$ for just 300 + taps? I would think making sure you rig is tuned properly and a hood and preheater should do sufficiently, how much sap are you going to have to process to get a good enough amount of RO sap to boil, I'm just wondering if you just want to boil for an hour or two and be done for the day? don't get me wrong but it just seems to take away whet the boiling process is all about, I understand the big guys having to cut down on boiling time when your dealing with sap amounts in the 10's of thousands/season, I tell ya, I still like Full day boils, get out there at 8 in the morn boil till supper, folks stopping by seeing the steam, for me at 300+ boiling 3 full days and just maybe a few evenings if the flow is good is just right... but again thats just me

[mountainvan]

I agree with mm3. seems to me the guy that would lay out that money is driving a tricked out hummer.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I am curious about RO's as I know almost nothing about them?? The new little Leader is a gravity flow RO. I didn't think the rest are, but am I wrong?? I would agree with Kevin that you could buy even a new membrane and rig it up to where the head pressure would push sap thru the membrane and basically have a homemade RO.

Am I wrong as I had been thinking about this also???? 8O

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

Brandon- Sap through an R.O. membrane is usually put through at hundreds of lbs of PSI. Thats what increases the sugar % go with a low PSI and you'll do more quanity-Wind up the pressure and your concentrate % comes out higher.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Kevin,

How high would the feed tank need to be above a gravity fed RO to work fairly efficiently??

[Russell Lampron]

The gravity fed RO means that it doesn't have a feed pump to pump the raw sap into the membrane. It does have a concentration pump to force the sap thru the membrane at a high enough pressure to seperate out some of the water.

Should a small producer purchase an RO machine? In my case I work a full time job and don't get home until close to 6pm. I also have to work every 3rd saturday. I have a 2x6 evaporator and have close to 500 taps now. Before I had my RO it would take about 10 hours to boil in 300 gals of sap. Now after running it thru the RO it takes about 4 hours. The added time savings also means less wood burned which means less wood has to be cut. If I had gone the other way and upgraded to a larger evaporator a 3x10 evaporator would have cost about $10,000 and I would have had to rebuild my 12x12 sugarhouse so it would fit in. The RO cost $5,000 and I only had to build a small insulated room to put it in. In my case I think it was well worth the investment.

Russ

[powerdub]

Ditto on Russ again. I tapped about 1250 last year. I boil on a 2.5 X 8 with a wood saver arch and preheater hood. On a good day when the weather is just right and everything else I can process 90 gallons an hour. That is not the norm. The last time I priced a 3 X 10 with all the stuff I have now it was $12,500 on sale and would only boost productivity by 30 gph so they say. I bought my RO used at $2500 and put new membranes in for $600. Now I start my RO right out of work and I can walk lines for an hour, have dinner with the family and be done boiling by 11 pm. On the big run days I have my father or father in law start it a couple of hours early so I can boil earlier. Those 18 hour marathon runs are history thank God. I am not as young as I used to be you know.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

I don't really know the height/but would say 10' otta do it?

[themapleking]

Don't forget about the electric bill running that 220 volt R.O. machine. A few outfits that I talked to said it costs them $300- $500 for the season. So are you going to add that costs over to your buiers, or are you going to eat it. Plus the $4000 bill on the R.O. machine.
R.O. 's don't make more syrup they just help make it faster.

[Russell Lampron]

A producer that is spending $300-$500 a year for electricity to operate his RO machine must be pretty large. What those producers are saving on fuel cost to run there evaporators would be far greater than the higher electric bill. Last season was my first with an RO machine and my electric bill was only $35 more than the season before. The cost of gas and fuel for the chain saws, tractor, truck and wood splitter cost me more than that and I cut the wood on my own land so it is basicly free. Yes the RO machine itself is expensive but to upgrade to a larger evaporator to get the same increase in gallons per hour is far more expensive.

Russ

[powerdub]

My electric bill is about $280.00 for March and April but that is for everything. I can't tell you how much it went up just for the RO, I didn't keep track of it before as the land owner (Dad) picked up the bill on his meter. When he saw me unloading the RO he call the electric company and now I have my one service. I guess I was not quick enough getting that thing out of sight. I do know I was burning about five cord of wood per hundred gallons of syrup. Now it is about two cord per hundred gallons and I can produce eight gallons of syrup an hour on average at about 6% to 8% concentrate. For me, the decision boiled down to (no pun intented) a couple of things. I can be processing sap with my having to be there, the cost compared to upgrading to a bigger rig was about a third and cut down on my labor during the summer to put up so much wood.

[mountainvan]

after figuring out it cost $50 to process 7000 gal sap I was very happy. my ro is the best hired hand I have.

[fk]

Can one compromise on the amount of water taken out of the sap with an RO? Say, bring your concentrate down to 4 or 5% instead of the 6-8 that seems to be talked about? And would this use less electricity and/or decrease wear and tear on the RO/membrane? ...Im just wondering because I love to boil sap but wouldnt mind cheating just a little. It also seems that nighter build up gets kind of tricky with these RO setups. Or is that just because the rig is drawing off so much more syrup than usual? :? Frank K

[mountainvan]

howdy from the catskills, yes you can change the sugar% in the concentrate with an ro. you can go from 4%- 10% with my cdl, 10% was not intended, I like to run 7%-8%. I do not think that it would use less juice, the pumps are still going, and the wear and tear should be the same. as for the niter, I found this year that the amount of niter on my front pan was much less. I made 70 gallons of finished syrup before I had to clean the front pan[ I have a crossflow not reversable]. I also love to boil, that's why I have over 2000 taps and a 2.5x10 evaporator. with the ro it's the same as having a 4x14 or a little bigger when I'm boiling hot

[powerdub]

If you are only looking to boost your sugar to 4% maybe a steam away would be better as it does not cost as much and uses much less electricity. That being said you won't see any savings on the electric bill by running at 4% over 10%. You will, however process your sap much quicker at 4% and it is a lot easier on the membranes. You can run it to concentrate at whatever you want. As far as niter goes for me, there is no more niter at the end of the night than there ever was, it just builds up a lot quicker. When you concentrate, you concentrate it all and that includes niter and bacteria.

[lew]

I have to agree with Russ. You want a machine that will produce more concentrate per hour than your evaporator can eat. Don't forget that you are going to have to shut your RO down once in awhile to go through a rinse cycle. I have seen some manufactures suggest that you rinse your membranes once you hav achieved a certain pressure differential and I have seen others suggest that you not run over 3 hours before going through a rinse cycle. We have an old Coster RO, and they want you to do a rinse every 3 hours. This takes about 20 minutes to rinse and another 10 minutes to get back online. That's why you need more concentrate per hour than your evaporator eats.

On the other hand, if you want to go with a smaller RO, you can gather your sap, get your RO running, go back to the woods and check lines, come back check on the RO's progress, do some other chores around the sugarhouse, and boil later. I do not like this method, but I do know of a local producer who does this in the early part of the season when it is cold. He actually gathers his sap today, runs it through a UV light, RO's the sap, stores the concentrate in a tank in a cool location and boils it tomorrow. He does make a lot of light syrup.

[maple flats]

How is best to size it? Do you go from your evap rate and have a holding tank to stage condensed sap til the evap can take it or can you be a little under your evap rate and have a bypass to supply sap when the RO is not keeping up? How long can the condensed sap be held realistically? I asked my dealer id they would RO my sap for a fee and they said it wouldn't work because I am 25 minutes away. Is the condensed this short storage time allowed? If I stay with my 2 x 6 at about 23-25 gph what size RO would be needed? Is the RO adjustable on output so the variable is sugar % when you need more in the pans?

[Russell Lampron]

I have a 150gph RO machine and it produces around 35gph of concentrated sap. I run it so that it produces 8% sap and it produces it at a rate that is about the same as my 2x6 evaporator will boil off. If you want more concentrate to boil you adjust the sap percentage down to 4% to 6% or anywhere in between. You want to boil the concentrate as soon as possible because bacteria grows in it alot faster than in raw sap. To figure out how much concentrate an RO will produce in an hour divide the gph rating by 4. Then using the gph of your evaporator you can find the minimum size RO machine for your operation.

Russ

[Sugarmaker]

Russ,
I was also trying to get ideas on R.O size. (I put some information in another string too). So if the evaporator boils at 100 GPH then a 400 GPH R.O would be required? I would want to run the R.O and
Thanks,
Chris

[Russell Lampron]

Chris,

I posted a reply to the other thread. Yes a 400gph RO would be the minimum size you would want.

Russ

[Russell Lampron]

Chris,

Another thing to think about, that big run you had of 826 gallons probably took about 8 or 9 hours to boil in. With an RO it would be reduced to about 200 gallons of concentrated sap which would have taken only about 2 hours to boil in once the evaporator was hot.

Russ

[Mike]

Ive been looking at RO's......Ive been looking at 600gph ROs.......I have a 3x10 and hope to end up with 2000 + taps for the 2008 season....And if I were to max out at say 3000-4000 taps what size would I need...The guy at Dominon Grimm said 100gals per 1000.....Does this sound about right.......4000 gals would require a 400gph RO??????? I dont want to over kill but I dont want to buy one to small.......................Mike

[Russell Lampron]

Mike-

I go by the number of gallons of concentrate the RO will produce compared to the number of gallons of sap the evaporator will boil in an hour. An RO takes out 3/4 of the water so a 400gph machine will produce 100 gallons of concentrate in an hour. This size should be used as a minimum if your evaporator can boil off 100gallons per hour. RO machine efficiency decreases with age as the membrane will clog up as it gets older. Sugar content and sap tempurature effect RO performance as well. The higher the sugar content of the raw sap the more concentrate it will produce and lower sugar content will produce less. RO machines are rated at a sap temp of somewhere around 50 degrees and colder sap takes longer to process although not much less. A 600gph RO would give you enough extra so that you could start the RO machine and your evaporator at the same time and also allow for decreased output as the machine ages.

In my case I have a 150gph RO and can out boil it on a good day. If I went by D&G's recommendation I should only need a 50gph RO for my 500 taps. I am seriously thinking of adding another membrane to my RO to make it a 300gph machine. Getting the sap processed faster uses less electricity.

Russ

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Mike,

I may be wrong, but I thought you told me that you are getting ready to retire, so it wouldn't be as much of an issue for you. Most of these guys work all day, so time is precious.

[Mike]

I work a 12 hr job......I know about time being precious....When Im working a friday sat and sunday 12 hrs a day during surgaring I have to either take vacation or wait till monday to boil.....Glad my buddy works a 8 hr day......I hope to expand big enough so's i can work a part time job when I retire, Im even thinking on a road trip in 2008 to visit a bunch of you guys to check out the set ups......Ill let ya know and ill start gathering directions........Start in VT,NH,Mass,NY,PA,VA, ............... :D

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Come on down and I'll put ya up! :D

[markcasper]

Anyone know the price of a 600 gph R.O.? New? Whats the best brand? Mark

[Parker]

During my maple tour at the end of this season pretty much everyone we stopped at was running the Lapierre machines,,everyone I talked to was VERY happy with them,,the mapleguys gave me a unbeatable price on a 600 gal/hr machine,,, drop them a line

[Russell Lampron]

Mark-

The Maple Guys (link at the top of this page) have the Lapierre 600gph RO machine for $12000 which is a very good price. I don't know about shipping to WI. I love my Lapierre RO and have had no problems with it or with Lapierre.

The Maple Guys are the only ones that publish a price for the RO machines. The other dealers want to size up the customer first to see how much they can gouge you on the price.

Russ

[Russell Lampron]

Parker-

Did you order one?

Russ

[ennismaple]

We bought our 600gph RO from CDL this time of the year in 2002 for $11,000 (CDN) plus tax. We've been very pleased with it - once we got over the language barrier. The French-English translation in the owner's manual left something to be desired.

With the price of oil, we figure the RO has pretty much paid for itself over the last 3 years. We use less than half the wood and half the labour to boil. We can process 3000 gallons of sap into 1000 gallons of concentrate (we only run at 150psi to save wear and tear on the pumps), start the evaporator up at 10:30 a.m. and be home before the news is over at supper time. No more 24 hour boils for us thanks to the RO!

[Parker]

Russ- I had a very bad witner logging (no frozen ground)and a pretty crappy sugaring season(did not make much syrup) so the funds just wernt there,,I have spent a suprising ammount of $$ on this addiction in the past 3 years,,with the fuel prices the way they are and with my equipment burning around 50-100 gallons of diesel a day,,,,,,,I figured I would hold off for now,,,plus I am still young and love burning 2-4 cords of 4 foot wood a day,,,I did talk to some dealers and the mapleguys had them all beat by a LONG way.....

[Russell Lampron]

Parker I too have spent alot of money on this hobby over the past 6 years, especially the last two. The RO was the most expensive piece of equipment but with the savings in wood used and time saved boiling and harvesting wood was the best purchase I made. I too have some expensive plans for the future that I don't have the money for. I still have less money into this sugaring hobby than I have into my Harley.

I was thinking about you back in January and early February when the weather was too warm and the ground too soft. Logging around here was pretty much at a stand still as well. It was a good year to work on tubing but thats about the only good thing about this past winter.

Russ

[Mike]

Do you have to gravity feed all RO's or do they make one that feeds with a pump?????????

[brookledge]

They are all designed to be fed with high pressure pumps except for the new model(hero) out by Leader.
Keith

[Russell Lampron]

Mike-

All RO's except for the Hero have a feed pump to pump the sap into the machine and a High pressure pump to pump it through the membrane(s). The newer RO's have impeller type feed pumps and the old ones have piston type feed pumps. Something to look for if you are looking at used ones.

Russ

[markcasper]

12000 is alot of money when you also are putting up a new building. I am going way bigger than I need to, but would rather get a decent building first. I can probably add a bigger evaporator first and eventually the bigger one will probably become too small and then add the ro at that time.

I have sugaring things (tanks, gathering tank, tubing) stored all over the farm in differnet outbuildings and now in my basement of my new house. It gets very confusing trying to keep track of where everything is and a big building will allow for a more organized operation.

Who knows...I am not going to rush things as that is when you almost always get burned. Mark

[Mike]

Mark, With a RO you can run a smaller evaporator than with out one...Helps save time and money on fuel time spent boiling....I like to boil, but the 10-12 hr days get long.....I guess it depends on how much time you have.....Mike

[markcasper]

I agree with the time spent boiling and fuel use. Guess I am a little scared of jumpimg into something new as I have toured a few guys places that wish they never seen one. Seems like most on here are happy though.

The bigger and longer the evaporator, the less fuel it takes per gallon of syrup made. So that is weighing on my mind too and the larger ones don't bring much $$$$. Noone wants to move them! Once its moved though, then its moved. Mark

[Russell Lampron]

Mark-

Everyone I have talked to that has an RO loves it and most wish they had bought it sooner. I haven't found anyone in this area that wishes they had never seen one.

It is true that you can buy used large evaporators pretty cheap now and you could always downsize if you got the RO in the future and found that the evaporator was too big.

Russ

[markcasper]

One thing that concerns me on a larger evaporator is what do you do when you get several days in a row and you only get 600 gallons per day. If you have a evaporator that boils 400 gph and only enough to cook an hour and a half, your gonna half a bunch of darker syrup due to not being able to get it moved through. It will sit and heat up, sit and heat up and that makes things darker. Mark

[Russell Lampron]

Mark-

It sounds like you are still trying to decide which is better, bigger evaporator or RO machine. If it works for you like it did for me the RO is the way to go. There are so many ways that you save with RO that it will pay for itself in a small amount of time and if you don't like it the resale value is high.

Russ

[markcasper]

Russ, you said it! It is not an easy decision and I often think of all the wood I would save. Mark

[gearpump]

Another point for the RO is the WOW factor. Its great when people visit the sugarhouse and see the RO running and all the "technology" that I have invested into making quality syrup.

Marty

[markcasper]

Ok, here I go again. A few years have passed since this was updated and I am still trying to figure out what to do.

I ended up running my evaporator for 34 hours straight Between April 15th and the 17th. I had maybe 7 hours help from my brother during that time while I was out gathering the almost 4200 gallons. Only got 19 hours sleep in a 7 day strech. I was back to work full-time that week and had the most sap of the season that week.

I NEED to do something as this is getting to be very hard. I do not have to keep telling myself "just one more year".

I was planning on a new building, but there has been some family issues and building a new building when I have no trees to my name is not a very smart move at this time. I am thinking of adding a 8x12, or 12x12 insulated addition onto my exisiting building for an R.O.. Therefore keeping my present evaporator and everything intact.

I have a 4x12 and can get up to 155 gallons per hour. On a so-so day I aim for 130.
What is the best R.o. on the market today? what size do I need? Now does Lappierre merge with CDL? It seems that the general consensus is to go with CDL and shy away from Leader.

They are forcing us to take vacation hours at times other than March and April where I work. This is factoring into the equation as well. If I wasn't laid off for 4 weeks this season, I would have been in a pile of doo.

It seems there is alot more gadgetery involved with having an R.O. i.e.; sap has to be ultra-filtered, have to have a UV light, have to have the right size concentrate tank so it doesn't run over while your out getting that next load of sap, not too mention all the talk about wash tanks, acid cleaners, sulfate baths, membrane peservatives, declining production with aging membranes, instead of having one pump at the sugarhouse from freezing, you now have several. It seems more complicated than just cutting some more wood. Its all giving me a headach, someone please HELP!

[PATheron]

Mark- I thought the same thing but I think your worrying a little too much about it. If you are going to make a lot of syrup its your only option. You are going to have to make a small insulated room and put a little milkhouse heater in it. Youll have to have a good 240 volt circuit into it for the ro and 120 for the heater. Once you have that ready you need two additional tanks. A head tank that will hold 25% of your bigggest run basically. I have a 450 for 1500 butt-kicking taps. The other tank has to be big enough for your permeate water. Figure a gallon per ro size. Im using a 800 gallon tank for a 600 ro becouse I got a good deal on it. Then you run your sap tanks into the room and put a drain valve on it so you can drain the pipe. Do that on all the pipes. That will feed the ro. Then you want to run a couple 1" plasic water lines, one to the concentrate tank and one to the permeate tank and then another big line from the perm tank back to the ro to do the rinse. Youll have four lines. Sap to ro, perm tank to ro, ro to conc tank, ro to perm tank. Lastly youll need a drain line from the ro to drain the wash and rinse. The wash tank should be part of the ro. The machine is easy to operate once you get used to it. I made my own cheat sheet up and laminated it and put it right in the ro room. Youll make your syrup on at least 25% of the firewood and youll do it in at least 25% of the time. If you ever start to see a radical reduction in performance from the membrane you just buy another one. For the price of the ro they are relatively cheap. I think maybe a 1,000 bucks. I think they last pretty darn long though if you keep them washed. Im not sure where your at but if your ever down here ill show you how mine is set up if you want. Im no authority on it but it seemed to work good for us. Hope that helped some. Theron

[Russell Lampron]

Mark, Theron explained it pretty well. Your question on what brand to get would depend on what your maple supplier sells but I would recommend the Lapierre or CDL based on what I have seen and heard about the others on the market. I like the Lapierre that I have and they say that the CDL is easy to operate. I don't see how it can be much simpler than the Lapierre because mine is easy to operate too. With the size of your evaporator a 600 gph RO would work fine. It will produce 150 gallons of concentrate at 8% in an hour so you should be able to boil while it is concentrating. I start mine then light the evaporator and get both jobs done at the same time. I have a 175 gallon feed tank that rarely sees more than 50 gallons in it. You didn't say what size feed tank you are using now but it is probably big enough. Replacement membranes can be had on the internet for alot less than the maple dealers sell them for so don't let their prices scare you away.

[markcasper]

Theron and Russell - Thanks for all of the information! It is all very helpfull in deciding what to do. Theron - Let me get this straight, you bought a 600 gallon CDL? So Lappirre and CDL are still one? I thought they merged.

Shows how much I am with the times. I have a 300 gallon feed tank. Not that big as I just keep replenishing from the lower tanks on the ground. I can get electric in pretty easily from the box which is 40 feet away or so. There is silo unloader cord that runs from that box, so thats not a problem.

In other posts I read something of running ALL of the premate through the machine for washing. One of you mentioned having an 800 gallon tank. Well when you have a 1500-2000 gallon sap run, you only run 800 gallons of premate through and let the rest run on the ground?

[Russell Lampron]

Mark I haven't had the permeate tank overflow problem since I got a 550 gallon tank but I used to let it run on the ground when I only had a 150 gallon tank. With the expansion plans that I have for the coming season I hope to have that problem again.

[maplwrks]

Mark,
Christian Chabot(CDL) and Donald Lapierre were business partners at one time. They parted company a few years back and Chabot went to making the LA FENDEUCE RO. The CDL and Lapierre ROs' are the cream of the crop. The only big difference in them is that the Lapierre uses an impeller style recirculating pump and the CDL uses a submersible pump for recirculation. Most membrane columns are interchangeable between the two.

[markcasper]

Does Seprotech make their own R.O. for Leader? It seems alot of people on this site have a Lappierre or CDL. Not too many have the kind Leader sells. Could I get you R.O.er's to explain why you got the brand you did?

I am getting ready to make a phone call and order one. My wife is saying do it, do it!! (Shes the same one that was telling me in April to "just" shut the switches off on the vacuum pumps.) Like I was going to do that!

The other thing, is a 600 gallon per hour R.O. a bit overkill for a 4x12? I mean what do you do all of those days where you only bring in 5-800 gallons? Does most people start things up for an hour or two and then you are done?

Isn't the sap going to be so concentrated that you'd be getting syrup in the middle of the pan? Are there days where some of you don't use the R.O. and just use your evaporator b/c you don't have enough sap? Would I not have a problem with getting more dark syrup on the smaller runs b/c the sap is so concentrated, therefore you'd have more tied up in the evaporator sitting overnight and getting heated up twice or more, making it darker.

I only had 1250 taps this year. I don't expect too many more for a few years (after our thinning project in a year or two) I may have up to 1800-2000 taps. Thats gonna be at least 3-4 years off. I may pick up some from a neighbor who wants to tube his woods (2-300 taps ) So any advice please advise. Mark

[Russell Lampron]

Mark I chose the Lapierre RO because I had heard good things about them and that is what I got the best price on.

Even on small runs all of the sap goes through the RO. A lot of times my evaporator is just getting warmed up and it is time to shut down. I don't mind it though, a good nights sleep after making a few gallons of syrup is better than staying up until the sun comes up then going to work.

A 600 gallon RO would be pretty evenly matched to a 4x12 evaporator. The output of concentrate is about equal to the evaporation rate of the evaporator.

Boiling concentrated sap is a lot easier than boiling raw sap. It seems to get moving through the front pan faster and easier than with raw sap. You are right about the syrup being darker when boiling small runs because of the time it sits in the evaporator between boils.

[markcasper]

So on a smaller run it may be better to not use the ro, that would help clear the evaporator of all that concentrate? And now that you said it, you do get the smaller runs and the lighter grades during the first half of the season it seams. I never get the tank busting runs til later in the season after everything is running good. For me its hard enough to make light syrup with tubing and south side without having ro induced dark syrup

russel- do you run your sap through a uv light? is this necessary? what kind of filtering technique has to be done for sap going to the ro? all i do now is filter through a sock when it gets unloaded from gathering tank. i assume their would have to be more done for sap going to th ro.

[royalmaple]

The Ro's have their own prefilter ahead of the membranes mine is 5 micron that traps alot of the stuff, I didn't filter my sap ahead of that but I could have.

On a smaller run you can always just concentrate less, so say you normally go to 8-10% nothing saying you can't adjust that to 6% and get more concentrate to get a longer boil. But once you start you won't want to go down in concentrate only higher. It is a little funny only boiling for an hour or so but still you get your first big draw then couple normal ones and that's it on some of these smaller runs. I tried to get everything to 10% regardless of the sap I had available, just means you are done quicker. You still push the concentrate out like you do sap, just may not push as much on a small run, you get it the next day.

One other thing you can think of is you thought the 600gph was too much, which I don't think so at all. The performance rates are based on sap at a temperature of 55 degrees. So colder the sap the slower the machine will perform. So don't think you are going to get 150 gallons of concentrate per hour no matter what. Sap quality, bacteria, and temperature all come into play.

[Russell Lampron]

Mark,

Matt is right about the concentrate quantity per the temperature and sap quality etc. I adjust mine so that I get the gallons per minute that I want to run my evaporator and take what I get for a concentrate percentage. It ranges between 7 and 10% depending on the sugar content that I have to start with and other factors.

I filter my sap through a pop sap filter when it goes into the bulk tank and the RO has a 5 micron pre filter on it. You wouldn't have to do anything different than you are doing now.

In another post you were mentioning the savings you would get in just what you spend on slabs now. Also figure in the man hours that you are saving by not having to handle that many more bundles of slabs and the reduced hours of time spent boiling. The RO pays for itself real quick.

On the smaller runs you could wait for a day or 2 for another run before you concentrate it all and boil it. Like you say those runs usually come earlier in the season when the temps are more favorable for sap storage. Once you boil concentrated sap you are not going to want to boil raw sap again. It is that much more fun.

[halfast tapper]

It really doesn't make the syrup an darker than if it was raw sap. The big thing is that you might have one draw off that is darker but you get to the lighter stuff a lot quicker. Also if you boil a run with raw sap and then switch back the time in between the concentrate and raw sap you might make more dark syrup than if you only boiled for an hour with concentrate. Once you have them short boils it's nice, but it also makes you want to put out more and more taps .
Before we went to a bigger rig and an auto draw off , we used to be able to get the valve set just right to have one continuous draw all night long.

[sapman]

Mark,

I got a used 500 or 600 (jury is still out) Airablo (D&G, same as Leader)this year. I only have a 2.5x8, and this machine matches up almost perfectly, or even a little small, depending on how far I want to concentrate. I only ran 700 buckets this year. Twice, I did hold sap over the weekend when I had only collected 4-500 gallons. Both times made light syrup, in fact 3/4 of my crop was light, so the RO didn't hurt. I think it actually must have helped.

I bought this brand of RO because my local dealers are Leader people, and give me great support, along with the guys in Swanton. I'm already thinking expansion (major) if I could get a bush to rent. I have been for years, though I wondered how I would process it all. Now I can. Might even need to get a bigger RO if it happens!

Good luck! I say go for it if you can afford it.

Tim

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

Other things to consider with an EE is the wash times daily? You have to get the filtrate up to temp. and then add the soap. Let that run for say 1/2 Hr or more and then do a rinse. Certainly on limited time it's not all glory/ as you do have to babysit it during this time=but the overall time saved is the factor to equate into it all for a deciding factor on rather to get a machine or not?.

[PATheron]

Mark- Ive been on vacation and wasnt able to reply to you guys. The 600 wont be overkill at all. I think it should be a minimum for you with that evap. Mine is brand new and I dont like to run it real hard and if I do roughly 10% stuff which is my preference I run about 90 gallons of concentrate out of it per hour as cold as my sap usually is. I could get more concentrate if I was only running 2% stuff to 8% stuff but the 10 boils fast and it matches my rig nice. I dont run my evap real hard but with that combination it worked well for me and im just learning everything I didnt start this season as any kind of authority on anything. I never ran a filter press till the season started. My experiance was that the small runs were no prob. If it was cold enough it didnt run much it wont spoil either. Id let it wait till I had 1000 to 1200 gals minimum and then boil it. I usually didnt wait long. I could see no darkening of the syrup with the roing except one night I held over some concentrate becouse I was pooped out and it MIGHT of darkened it a little, my neighbor that doesnt like ro's said he could see a difference but I couldnt. If your going to make a lot of syrup do yourself a favor and buy one if you can afford it. I like my cdl becouse its the nicest one ive ever seen as far as the valves go. I have two valves on the machine for everything and thats it. I really like that. I do have shutoff valves and things going to it but to operate it there are only the two. Next year Im going to start recirculating my sap to become even more efficient. Im trying to decide how to process the sap once I do my next expansion and if I concentrate high enough it becomes very obvious that it is a very efficient way to make syrup. As far as taste goes I personally prefer to sell in bulk so if the packers are happy to have it and they are happy to sign some big checks then im happy. If I find that the taste is a problem as far as putting it on my pancakes Ill do my barrell at 8%. If I find that there is no market for the higher concentrated syrup then ill concentrate it to the point that the market demands. Theron