What size?

[Red-bellied Woodpecker]

Hello

I know this year hasn't started yet but already making plans for next year. Plan is to add a RO in 2014 and just not sure what size I should be looking at. We have 2000 taps on buckets for this year and next but will be going to 1500 on vac and 500 on buckets for 2015. I have a 2X8 with 2X6 of that being flu. Right now we boil 18hr a day and would like to cut that back next year....with this set up what size RO should I be looking at? Also thinking of adding a steam-away but some have told me I don't want to run a SA and RO together?

Thanks for any info

[shane hickey]

When i burned wood i ran an ro sap into a 5x16 arch
With a steam away then from that evaporator into a 6x20
And made almost 2 barrels an hour and i asked if i should of done
This on here and everyone said no. Boy did we burn alot
Of wood that year.

[ennismaple]

Red-bellied,

I think you'd be OK with a 600 GPH RO. On an average day you'll get 2,000 gallons of sap meaning you need to run the RO for 3.33 hours. A great day would be upwards of 4,000 gallons of sap and double the amount of processing time. On a poor day you'll need 1,000 gallons to fire up the RO and have enough permeate to wash the membrane.

We're at about 4,150 taps now and at the limit of what our 600GPH RO can handle. An average day it runs 7 hours - meaning we boil for the same amount of time because we dial the concentrate flow rate to match the evaporator's speed once we're up and running. Our plan is to add another 600GPH membrane next year which will up our processing rate to between 900 and 1000GPH and we should get to between 12% and 14% concentrate.

Hope this helps.

[Red-bellied Woodpecker]

Would a 600 GPH RO make more concentrate then our rig can handle in a ave of 7 hr boil geting around 52 gal/hr?

[farmall h]

Vermontville, Michigan? Shane I like the name of your town.:)

[shane hickey]

Vermontville, Michigan? Shane I like the name of your town.:)




It was named by vermonters that made syrup in vermont
Apparently they thought this place reminded them of
Home with so many trees so they named it vermontville
Theres the history of my town.

[gmcooper]

Would a 600 GPH RO make more concentrate then our rig can handle in a ave of 7 hr boil geting around 52 gal/hr?

Short answer is yes the 600 gph RO would ideally take 600 gph 2% sap to 150 gallons 8% concentrate. That means it would be cranking out almost 3 times as much as you could boil. If you recirculate to 12% you would have roughly 75 gallons per hour concentrate. Still more than you can keep up with but manageable.
I would look to bump up your evaporator especially if you want to keep expanding.
Mark

[nymapleguy607]

I can't say much regarding the size of the ro, but as far as a steamaway goes you don't need one or the other you can have them both. At verona Brad from leader talked about this he saiad that a steamaway basiclly took out 50% of the water so you could ro to 8% and run it through the steamaway and have 12% sap running into the flue pan. You would then be taking a little over 4 gallons an hour off the evaporator. I'm assumming your getting only around 1 gallon an hour now.

[Red-bellied Woodpecker]

Thank you for the info