Too soon to add an RO?

[Loch Muller]

With the slow start to the season this year I've been spending some time thinking about the future of my operation. I need to come up with a way to improve my evaporation efficiency if I'm going to keep going with the number of taps I have right now. I have opportunity to add another 200-300 taps as well. Reasonable options seem to be:

1. Upgrade my pans on the existing arch
2. Upgrade the entire evaporator
3. Add an RO

I'm starting to think an RO might be the best choice, if I can pick one up for a good price it would cost about the same as a pan upgrade and less than a whole new evaporator (ie. 2x6 with flue pans). I read on another post here that Ray Gingrich's 125gph machine will go from 2% to 6% putting out about 33 gal/hr. That would save me a whole lot of time cutting wood and boiling sap if that is true. Enough time that I could add more taps and make more syrup (more profit). I'd also like to try making birch syrup since I have lots of white birch to tap. An evaporator upgrade will probably happen in the future as well, but I think the RO would be the best use of my money for what I want to do right now. What do you think? Thanks for your opinions.

[Russell Lampron]

With an RO 500 taps wouldn't be out of the question with a pan upgrade on your present evaporator. I would get the RO first and better pans after the RO pays for itself. I have a Lapierre 125 RO and 2x6 evaporator to process the sap from 700 taps on vacuum and 100 buckets. My plan for the future is to get a bigger RO and double my taps on vacuum. So to answer your question, no it's not too soon to add an RO.

[maple flats]

Get the RO first, then everything will fall into place. You will never want to boil without an RO again.

[bowhunter]

No doubt...get the RO first. I'm smaller than you. I built a small RO this year and I sized it to fit the capacity of my evaporator. I can make 3 gallons of syrup on my half pint in 6 hours. I ran between 5% and 10 % and cut my boiling time by 2/3. It was amazing how little wood I've burned this year. I think with the size you want, Ray's units are your best option. He builds and sells them this size for what it would cost you to buy the components. His units get very good reviews.

[heus]

I bought one of Rays ROs for this season. I always heard people say once you boil concentrate you'll never go back. Well let me tell you it's the truth! I used to spend up to 16 hours at a time boiling. My longest boil this year has been 3 hours or so. It is truly the best maple purchase I ever made. Second would be my filter press.

[Loch Muller]

Thanks for the advice. I'm pretty well convinced that an RO is the next big investment I need to make in my operation. I called up Ray Gingrich today and left a message asking for some info on his machines.

One thing I need to figure out is how will I keep the RO from freezing up while I'm not using it. I haven't decided if I'll go with the gas powered or electric powered model yet. Do I need to have a way to move it into a heated space when I'm not using it? How big and heavy are these things? I'll talk to Ray about that and the general operation of the units when I catch up with him, but any advice on how you guys have them setup would be great. Thanks.

[MISugarDaddy]

Ray suggested the construction of an insulated box with a light bulb in it (left ON) and store the RO in it to keep it from freezing. I just finished mine yesterday using sheets of foam insulation and with a 75 watt bulb it remained 42 degrees over night. I think I will probably use a larger wattage bulb to keep it a little warmer on colder nights. Now, once I run the antifreeze out of the membranes, I will just roll the RO into its box and not worry about it. I made the box 3' wide, 6' tall and 4' long, which is plenty large for my 250 unit.

[Loch Muller]

Guess that would make a pretty good argument for an electric powered RO since you could just leave it in the insulated frame, or near it, while it is running. Seems like a gas powered unit would be a pain to move in and out all the time, but maybe they are more mobile than I think. I don't have enough power to run an electric RO in my sugar shed right now (only 1 110v circuit on a 20amp breaker) so I might go with a gas unit if I can convince myself that it won't be too much of a hassle moving it around.

[maplefarmer]

I have a Ray Gingerich 250 gas engine ro, I start filling my 350 gal tank from the sap hauler, start the ro as soon as I get enough sap to ro, let the concentrate keep going into the 350 gal tank along with the fresh sap, then I will switch the conc. hose over to a 210 gal tank that gravity feeds my evap. the 250 ro will take the sap from the mix at 4% and raise it to 7.5% going into the evap tank. The only bad thing is with the gas engine I get a lot of vibration, and it is making my rinse tank leak, I tried jb marine weld and it still leaks, it should of had rubber bushing or something under the stainless tank to stop the vib., other than that, love the evap. not using near as much wood or having 12-13 hr boil times.

[heus]

As far as mobility if you have concrete it would be very easy to wheel it around (its on wheels).

[Loch Muller]

Wood floors in my current shed, with cement board all around the evaporator. I've got a site and plans for a new sugar house with concrete floors, but that is probably two seasons from now as the RO and some tubing/taps to go along with it will eat up my improvement budget for this coming year. The RO will probably roll around good enough on the wood floors. Maybe I'll come up with an idea to make it easy when I see the units a little more. Thanks.

[VT_K9]

We bought a CDL Hobby 250 RO at Bascom's sale last year. It was hard to decide on the 125 or 250. In reality the 125 maybe more appropriate to maintain the proper amount of permeate to clean up. We have about 275 taps with a few new ones putting us probably just over 300. We run a sap puller and will be trying out 6 of the sap bags once flow really kicks up....Those trees sit on the same plateau as the gathering tank and cannot be hooked into the sap sucker. I probably could easily add another 10 bags in this one spot. We are looking at going to a full vacuum next year and adding 125-150 more taps.

From reading here and talking to folks it seems the RO is likely the most cost effective upgrade to process sap (versus a preheater or steamaway).

Mike