Steam Away Competitor?

[treehugger]

Are there any other companies that make a something similar to Leader's Steam Away? I read something about Sunrise Metal Shop, but there is no info on them or their products. For a 2x4, leader wants near $5,000, OUCH!!!

[mellondome]

Go with an R/O first. besides being more effecient and removes water while you are not boiling ( like gathering, eating dinner, working day job),

Besides, it wouldn't look right with your rig... unless you go copper with that as well!

[markct]

I second the advice on an Ro i bought one and couldnt be happier! Just as the other guy said it is more efficient by far, an ro will take you up to 8 to 12 percent going into the evaporator with even a small ro, a steamaway will be lucky to get you half that! And i love that when i get overrun with sap i start it the night before and boil in the am, or bring in a load of sap and start it running while i go out and pump the rest of the tanks.

[DrTimPerkins]

Are there any other companies that make a something similar to Leader's Steam Away?

I believe CDL makes what is called a "Steam Pan". I've not seen one, or know anything other than what is in the catalog.

[treehugger]

Head to head, whats more time/money consuming as far as maintenance, ro or steam away?

[wiam]

Head to head, whats more time/money consuming as far as maintenance, ro or steam away?
That is a loaded question. I had always figured I would get a steamaway but I ended up with an RO. I decided that an RO would fit on any pan and because of this resale should be higher. You would have to find someone with the same pan to move a steamaway. I believe Lappierre makes something similar. Steamaway uses a lot less electricity and does not need heat.

[DrTimPerkins]

Head to head, whats more time/money consuming as far as maintenance, ro or steam away?

Both a Steam-away and an RO will require some expense and time to purchase, operate, and maintain. The "hidden" costs of an RO is that it'll require you to buy and find space for at least 2 additional tanks (one for concentrate -- unless you can use your header tank -- and one for permeate). In addition, depending upon the RO, you may find that your current evaporator is too big, or that you can't concentrate very high or else you won't have enough concentrate to flood the rig and boil.

[maple flats]

If you are planning on growing I suggest the RO. I consider mine (as does my wife) the best investment I've ever made. Later if you want a SteamAway you can too. I'm just going to a bigger RO, after just 2 seasons, as I keep growing.

[sg5054]

With a 2x3 mason is a small RO realistic? I had 100 taps out and could have got more from a friends farm. Several times I couldn't boil fast enough for what I was collecting. 3/4 of my taps are off site in borrowed trees.
I could build a hood, a manifold preheater, or a small RO.

[treehugger]

That's great advice, thanks. I spoke to my local Leader dealer and he said that an RO will reduce sap by 2/3. That is alot, and as Dr. Tim said I may be left with too little to boil, but would give me a good excuse to expand.

[Snowy Pass Maple]

With a 2x3 mason is a small RO realistic? I had 100 taps out and could have got more from a friends farm. Several times I couldn't boil fast enough for what I was collecting. 3/4 of my taps are off site in borrowed trees.
I could build a hood, a manifold preheater, or a small RO.

Totally realistic - you could target a small home-built system that can do 10 GPH of permeate removal. Maybe more at low brix; less as the brix increases. That RO can also work while you sleep, or you're at work - so now you're talking about getting rid of ~200 gallons of water/day (leave time for rinses) plus your evaporator rate X number of hours you want to boil. That keeps up with a lot of taps without a lot of hours.

Managing 140 taps (at our peak for a couple weeks) on a Mason 2x4 flat pan was a walk in the park with the RO. I had a few 5 hour boils here and there, but no crazy marathon sessions - more typical was 3 hours in the evening. We made close to 60 gallons of syrup this year on the 2x4 and ran an average of about 110 taps for two months. I can't fathom doing it without a RO.

With plenty of good seasoned wood and a blower next year to squeeze a bit more out of the boil rate, I wouldn't hesitate to run 200-250 taps on the 2x4. I should also mention that I have a full-time day job to balance this with.

[PerryFamily]

I ran into this question myself.
My thoughts were:
Steam away takes less to operate ( elect / tanks / plumbing / heat ) but is pretty expensive for what it does. ( In my opinion )
RO removes a PILE of water and would allow me to keep the same evaporator for now.
After talking to a few larger producers who have both, I felt the money was better spent on a RO. I purchased a used 600 waaterloo RO for less than the cost if a steam away. As Dr. Tim mentioned, there are "hidden" costs for sure. I hooked mine up to run this year with cage ibc tanks and temporary pvc / poly plumbing. Needless to say I had $600 in tanks and $700 in plumbing with all the valves and what not. The electricity to keep the thing warm jumped my bill $100 a month as well as the electrician cost to hook it up.
But I can tell you first hand, ALL MONEY WELL SPENT. RO is amazing. Every time I use it I tell my self " see all that permeate, that would have been steam, wood and a pile of time".
I went from 200 taps in 2012 to 1100 this year, on a 2x6 patriot forced draft. I found 10% is a good concentration. I finished out at a shade over 250 gallons. Longest boil 11 hrs, average boil 4-5 hrs.
I did run it at times with 300-500 gallons of raw sap, but was left with very little concentrate. Hardly enough to start up.500-600 was better but obviously the more the better.
Wish list for 2014: permanent insulated addition for RO and more storage for raw sap and permeate.
Oh yea, and as many more taps as I can find!!

[Russell Lampron]

When I was at that cross roads where I needed to make the big decision I went with an RO. If I had gone with a bigger evaporator I would have had to rebuild my sugar house to make it fit. Both too expensive and not practical. A Steamaway was about the same money as the RO but not as efficient and I would have to bring my Algier flue pan to Leader so that they could custom build the Steamaway to fit my pan. I decided on the RO and am now at 800 taps boiling it all on my Algier 2x6 evaporator. Depending on how much sap I have I normally concentrate from 14% to 18%. It sure is fun drawing 6 or 7 gallons of syrup an hour! Because of the RO I was able to make over 200 gallons of syrup this year and used a little over 2 cords of wood to do it.

When I first got my RO in 2005 there weren't too many believers on here. Most producers were thinking that they needed a bigger evaporator. Now I see lots of producers with smaller evaporators than mine using RO's. How times have changed.

[stoweski]

So what's the damage with a home-made RO? I've seen several posts on building one... and it seems fairly straightforward & easy. But at what cost?

I was considering a steam hood & copper parallel preheater - not a steamaway - to jack up the sap temp before entering the evap. If I could make an RO and keep the price tag under $600 I'd go for that. I have the tanks necessary so plumbing & heat is all that I would need... but then again I've also heard of some people running the RO when it's above freezing and draining it when it drops below freezing. Something portable for my size operation would be helpful as I could move it if I didn't have heat at the shack.

Oh, I'm running 200 taps on a 2x6 at this point. Don't see much more as far as expansion. Full time job is getting in the way... but I do like the sound of boiling for 4-5 hours instead of 12 hours after work!

[bowhunter]

Yes you can build an RO system for less than $600. I don't have an RO, but I am designing one for next year. There at least three people on this forum who have built home made RO's and had good success. Each has his own approach which seems to work and they have posted a lot of information. Two of them use conventional home RO cartridges and the third uses more of a commercial grade nano filtration membrane. I believe they all have less than $600 in their systems. At 200 taps you are on the cusp where the home RO membranes may not be adequate. I will give you the handle for each of these guys and there are probably more who have valuable input.

RO is much better than the other options because it gives you less boil time and it reduces the about of wood/fuel by 60-80% which is huge. So you have less boil time and more importantly you spend a lot less time cutting and handling wood.

There's a guy in Midland, MI who goes by "not-for-sale" on this forum. He uses large home RO membranes and is having good success. I believe he circulates the concentrate back to the sap tank. "Snowy Pass Maple" who commented on this thread uses nano filtration membrane and also circulates back to the tank. He has at least one season's worth of experience and his operation is close to yours in size. One of the first to post anything on homemade RO is Bret Hodorski. Bret uses home RO membranes and is a little smaller than your operation. He does once through and cleans with hydrogen peroxide after each use. He has a couple of years experience and has posted his design in this link https://sites.google.com/site/mattatuckmadnessmaplesyrup/home/homemade-reverse-osmosis-system.

This presentation from H2O Innovation is a good primer on RO for Maple Syrup production http://maple.h2oinnovation.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/H2O_Innovation_Maple_Membrane_Training_2011_ENG.pd f

[stoweski]

Thanks for the info! Exactly what I was looking and hoping for. I really need some basic info - which from the looks of the first few pages of the h2oinnovations link is what I'm after.

I'll have to see if I can schedule a visit sometime. I like the price of the homemade RO... and it looks as though for the price it's a lot more effective than a preheater & steam hood. Though maybe I could swing all three!