Sizing

[Fred Henderson]

How do I size an RO for my operation? Do I go by the number of taps?

[mapleguy]

One of the ways I like to size a RO is to have the right output from it to match the capacity of the evaporator - that is if your evaporator boils 100 gallons an hour then size the RO to put out 100 gallons an hour. That way you can RO for an hour, then start boiling and the evaporator will keep up to to the RO output. Others may want to size it so they can RO for a longer time at a slower rate then do the boiling. Remember that RO'ed sap can deteriorate faster than raw sap, especially in warm weather. The faster you can process it the better the product

[Russell Lampron]

Fred,

Like mapleguy said as a minimum size you want an RO that will produce as much concentrate in an hour as your evaporator will boil off. Multiply the gph of your evaporator by 4 and this will give you the size to start with. It is a good idea to get one a little larger so that you won't out boil it as it's efficiency decreases with age.

I like to get mine started and then light the evaporator. In that first hour the evaporator boils off what I flooded the pans with the last time I boiled to let about an hours worth of concentrate fill the feed tank. My 150gph RO produces about 37 gallons of concentrate in an hour and my 2x6 evaporator boils off about 35gph. Works great now but I will need to add a membrane in the future or upgrade to a larger RO as the efficiency decreases.

Happy thanksgiving,Russ

[mountainvan]

I went by how much sap I was expecting to get in a day. My evaporator boils faster than my ro, but I run the ro while I collect. By the time I'm ready to boil the back tank is almost full.