Using RO permiate in the pans

[brookledge]

Does anyone let their pans soak in permiate in between boils and how well does it work to keep the build up down? I seem to remember someone saying that the permiate(since it has no minerals) will pull the minerals off the pans just by soaking.
Keith

[wiam]

Every time I shut down I put permeate in my front pan and let it soak overnight. I put it in when the rig is still pretty warm. The permeate will get warm enough so you do not want your hand in it. Then I scrub a little with a brush and let it sit until next day. This is making 15 to 20 (or more) gallons/boil and running 10% with a 2x2 front pan, not reversible.

[jim finen]

Yes soking the pans works great. I change out my finishing pan every nite and rotate the middle pan, then every othre nite I swich out the middle one to soke. In the am I take a razor blade to them very carefully and the niter just comes right off. My pans are 7 years old and you can still see yourself in the bottom of them.

[Thad Blaisdell]

The true key to taking the nitre off with water is to keep it moving. On my front pan I added a circulator pump like you would find on a boiler. I put that on one side, and pipe the water back to the other and let it run all night. If the nitre is bad I would change the water in the morning. Now I add acid to the water and boil it. Much easier.

[red maples]

I have a small under the sink RO in my kitchen that was getting serviced and I was talking to the guy and he said they use a type of fexible plastic tubing sorry I can't remember the name of it, because he said since the water no longer has the minerals its is very tough on copper etc. he said thats why they need to use stainless for the bigger RO's or PVC works as well. He said it makes a good cleaning agent to get lime scale and rust off fixtures and things. He said just let it soak in hot pure RO water and scrub every so often and it will eventually come off. SO I guess it work good with a syrup pan as well.

[tuckermtn]

curious what the sequence is for those of you who are wood fired who do this? Wiam mentioned that he does this when the rig is still pretty hot- do you let it get down to around 150 or so and drain the sweet out then put the permeate in? worried about residual heat buckling an empty pan. guess you could open the arch door while your doing it. what are the other tricks?

also- isn't the water coming off a preheater hood the same de-mineralized water that is permeate?

I would like to do more this drain and rinse this year but need to know more...

[markcasper]

I usually run an 3/4 hours worth (100 gallons) of permeate through my 4x12 at the end of most boils. I let the pans get down pretty low and then charge it with permeate while not letting off the fire til theres maybe 30 gallons left. Doing this pushes most of the concentrate out of the flue pan and usually get another 15 gallons of syrup out by doing this. I have tested the % in the flue pan prior to the next startup and have had it as low as 6%. When I used to boil raw sap the % in the flue pan was around 12-14% prior to the next startup. This mehtod keeps the flue pan much cleaner. When the syrup gets to Commercial I quit doing this trick, gets me out of there an hour sooner.

I forgot to mention also, I do back off the firing briefly while running out of concentrate. I always have more liquid in the flue pan and when your letting the level come down in the pans, the syrup really comes off fast. Before the front pan gets to low to dare, I plug it off from the flue pan and drain from 7-15 gallons from the drop flue drain before charging the flue pan with permeate. I usually like to get it down so the top of the flues are running dry. I then use the drained concentrate and pour back in the syrup pan on the opposite side from where the finished syrup is coming off. I don't pour it in all at once, rather just enough to keep pushing finished syrup out. Depending on the level in the syrup pan, I either fire up right before doing this, or right after, By then the flue pan has a couple inches back in it and then I remove the plug from the syrup pan and finish boiling as normal. I also keep alot of syrup from being darker than it would if I didn't do this.

[wiam]

I have a probe type stack thermometer that runs about 1400 degrees when boiling. I leave the blower running and when the stack gets down to 400 degrees I drain the front pan into a bucket, pushing out the last with a brush, then quickly pour in a bucket of permeate.(Have the permeate ready) I was nervous of residual heat of the arch at first but this procedure has worked for me.