Sucking sap out of IBC tank without disturbing liner bag

[Snowy Pass Maple]

Thought the great minds of mapletrader have solved or could quickly solve this...

We are using the IBC tote liner bags from Freedom Mfg. On my tank in the woods, I removed the valve and just capped the drain port so I don't have to worry about freezing the valve, and figured I'd pump the sap out from the top. Unfortunately, the suction on the 1" line of my Honda transfer pump is pulling the liner up and I made quite a mess of the liner bag doing this in the dark and rain... I'm going to end up draining the last bit out and re-seating the bag.

One idea I was thinking was to just step the 1" hose up to a large (3-4"?) PVC coupler fitting (needs to have smooth edges and fit through 6" IBC port that already has 3 lines into it...) with a ring of 1/2" holes drilled in the sides just off the bottom of the large diameter fitting. The large diameter fitting would hold the liner down and the flow pulling through any individual hole on the sides would hopefully be slow enough to avoid pulling the liner up 90 degrees and sticking to the side of the large diameter fitting. If I put some sort of slightly larger diameter cap/plate on the end of the large diameter PVC fitting, that would make it even harder for the liner to wrap up and stick to the holes around the perimeter, but then I would keep raising the holes and leave a little more in the tank, and not sure how I would make a plate that would be thin, easily attached to the ring fitting, and no rough edges to puncture the bag.

Any better ideas people have come up with?

[Sugarmaker]

Would something as simple as a tee on the bottom of the suction hose with maybe 6 inches of extension on each side of the tee work? Might hold the bag down but draw near the bottom of the tank also?
Regards,
Chris

[CincySyrupPusher]

1" threaded adapter with a cap (whatever matches up with the hose)... holes drilled all around the cap. Should take care of it :)

[Snowy Pass Maple]

So I realized that the problem was a little more complicated - and bone-headed... I had forgotten to take off the o-ring on the buttress cap that I used on the outlet. My guess is that this extra o-ring displaced the liner bag o-ring and popped it free - then my suction hose lifted it right out of position.

Had to scrap 50 gallons of sap, but got it all put back together and seems good now.

I still ended up making a suction wand using 1" PVC terminating in a 1->2" diameter transition piece with a rounded 2" end-cap on it. Then I drilled 9 1/2" holes around the perimeter of the rounded end-cap. This gives me a bit over 2x the cross-sectional area for the suction side, so that should slow the velocity through each inlet hole making it less likely to pull the liner onto it. And it's unable to seal itself against the bottom of the tank to grab onto the liner and lift it. Hopefully no more issues!

[markct]

Why not just wash tanks each year and eliminate messing with liners? To me the hassle of liners would outweigh the savings of no cleanup

[CincySyrupPusher]

Why not just wash tanks each year and eliminate messing with liners? To me the hassle of liners would outweigh the savings of no cleanup

I agree! I considered it when planning our new setup and decided against it. And they are expensive too!

[Snowy Pass Maple]

They are indeed expensive and a pain. But we are using tanks that previously held corn sweetener and they still have an aroma that I don't want to risk getting into our sap.

Once installed, they seem to work very well with the exception of trying to pump out from the top - even the wand I made still pulls the bag up. So I'm going to be back to putting a valve on the IBC tote and taking steps to ensure it doesn't freeze in the deep cold snaps we've been having this year, and then pumping out through the bottom.

[markct]

My valves freeze all the time but never break unless they were closed when full of liquid thus trapping it in the ball

[Snowy Pass Maple]

My valves freeze all the time but never break unless they were closed when full of liquid thus trapping it in the ball

That is good to hear - maybe I'm worrying too much about this risk. Would be WAY easier to just trust a valve there than pump from the top.

I was also debating whether running a larger valve would be safer? Normally I'd just put on a 1" valve since I'm pumping with 1" hose. But maybe a 2" valve would take a lot longer to freeze all the way through? Are you just using PVC valves?

[CincySyrupPusher]

My valves freeze all the time but never break unless they were closed when full of liquid thus trapping it in the ball

How do you close the valve, on a full 330 IBC tote without getting fluid "in" the ball?

[markct]

You close it when its empty. If you need to close it when part full you then need to cap the end and then leave the valve open