ro vs larger evaporator

[theguywiththename]

so im curently evaluating a possible expansion. ive discovered upon marking a bunch of trees that need removal. we thought previously that our bush had minimal maples in the bush. upon further evaluation, ive discovered that in the highest 3-5 acres have an average density of a whopping 243 taps per acre! so ive been evaluating the costs of a 600 taps ish operation. im curently stuck between larger evaporator or an ro. if i was to go ro, i would build a flue pan and arch myself. if i was to go larger evaporator i would probably price a set of pans at a local food equipment machine shop and build an arch myself or i would buy a comercial evaporator. i see the benifits of both but cant decide the cost draw backs of each because all the maple companies havent provided me with a price for ros and leader hasnt called back about the cost of evaporators. leader didnt provide me with prices right away due to technical difficulties. if anyone could help me that would be great. btw i have about 6 hours a day to boil and these taps would be under vaccum.

[unc23win]

It all depends on how much you want to spend and how much you could potentially expand your operation. What kind of fuel are looking to use? Wood? Oil? Have you considered a used equipment? Sometimes you can get good deals on real nice stuff evaporators and ROs. I know you mentioned Leader there are other companies that will sell you one if Leader isn't jumping on it. I got used evaporator for last season from Lapierre and they have a few on their site right now.

http://www.sugaringequipment.elapierre.com/produits_en.asp?no=2

If your going to eventually get to 1200 taps or so and only have 6 hours to boil your going to either need a pretty large evaporator or both an evaporator and and RO. For instance I had 1400 taps last year with 3.5x14 evaporator and used RO I averaged 8% brix and boiled an average of 4 hours a night and only averaged .25 gallons of syrup per tap.

[n8hutch]

I myself ordered pans this spring 2.5 x 8 with same side reverse flow syrup pan, I am going to build my own Arch with Air over/under fire , I have purchased most of the materials so I'm fairly confident I will have about 8,500.00 USD in the whole setup, pan's we're about 5,000.00 , I am hoping to boil a 100 gph+ with this setup, I will have 500+ taps this year. I went a little bigger on the evap. Had a 2x4 last year because I hope to get up around 2k taps in the next few years. Hope this helps.

[motowbrowne]

Well, Do you like plumbing or burning firewood??

For me it'd be an easy choice. I'd buy the biggest (within reason) used evaporator I could find. 3x10 at least, and start cutting wood. But, I enjoy cutting wood and I know it ain't for everyone.

[Maple Ridge Farm]

The decision for sizing an evaporator and/or RO is based upon # of taps and how many hours available to boil.
I know of a very good used evaporator that might work for you.
PM me if interested.

[maple flats]

Dollar for dollar, I'd go an RO and use a smaller evaporator. If you buy a Ray Gingerich RO or a Water Guys RO and maybe some others, you geyt a lot of bang for your buck. I use a 250 GPH RO, by Ray Gingerich. It removes about 75% of the water in one pass while running 250 GPH input. I also re-concentrate removing about 50-60% more water on a second pass. Doing this I can start with lets say 1000 gal of 2% sap, One pass gets it to 250 gal +/-, then a second pass brings me to 100-125. gal. to boil. I paid $3200 for the RO, new in fall 2011. The prices have changed since but are still quite reasonable. Now with lets say 125 gal to boil down, I can boil in less than 2 hrs. In reality, I start the RO filling to my feed tank. When that gets to 50-75 gal of 8% concentrate I light the fire and continue concentrating too. I adjust the flow if needed to get more concentrate per hour than the evaporation rate. Then when the feed tank gets high or I run out of raw sap, I switch 2 valves and re-concentrate to bring the sugar % higher in the feed tank until it is time to start cleanup. An RO saves lots of fuel, regardless of what you heat with. With an RO you can make more syrup with a much smaller evaporator and still save time. If you burn wood, it will also cut your wood to 1/4 if you remove 75% of the water, even more savings if you remove more water using the RO.
My busiest day processing sap ever since the RO, I did 2500 gal. Using the RO while boiling I was done in 11 hrs. from 2500 gal raw sap to finish boiling and shutting down the evaporator. Before I had the RO, my biggest day I did 1400 gal in a 20 hr. LONG day, both were using a 3x8 evaporator. A faster RO would have cut the time even more because I could reduce the sap to concentrate faster and get it to a higher sugar % to boil sooner.
While an RO from the big guys will concentrate to a higher % in one pass the price is far higher.

[BreezyHill]

Last season we had only 650 taps in. Most days we ran the RO when the 500 g collection tank got near full. It would take only 5 minutes to get enough concentrate to restart the evap. My RO is an old Memtek that is over sized in the pressure pump for todays high tech membranes. I will be installing 2 more xle440 to match my circulation flow to the membranes. This season we will be around 12-1300 taps. Last season I batched and could usually boil in 1.5 to 3 hours on a 2x6 with AUF and a steam preheater that gets the incoming to 180-190. It was a poor season with no good runs for all sections of the bush. Either to cold or to windy. Then it finally got to hot.

For me it is RO as the work horse and the Evap does the artwork. After a rough start with the new membranes they tuned in to kicking out 3 g/m of 8% in one pass. I prefer to batch, with our old tank setup.
Installing a few valves allows your RO to be a transfer pump to get the concentrate to the evaporator tank.

Previous season after a major tubing failure under vacuum, we got 260 retubed and averaged .47 g/tap. We didn't run the RO and it was many days boiling for 18+ hours and we would still fell behind on good run days. The price of the RO is nothing compared to the look on the wife's face when I got in the hose at 10:30. This was after she saw the collection tank was full and remembered it was 2 am I would come to bed most nights. She went from not really a fan of the maple production to a few weeks ago saying you need to expand more.

Best thing about this RO is it has an Auto setting. If it hits high pressure, low pressure or a leak it shuts down. So I can fire it up and let the trees run and check it ever hour or so. My middle son want to set up a camera to the computer so I can check it from the cell phone or pc.

Before the RO, when we did the entire farm, we ran a 5x 16 and a 2x6. The RO did away with the monster wood eater. Now the plan is to get the farm taped again and grow to a 2.5x10 to utilize the sugar house space the best. May need to add a tower and booster pump to the RO or just build another. Time will tell.

Since you are obviously very mechanically inclined, I can hook you up with a guy that built his own RO. Simple but does the job. Not a lot of bells and whistles but boy can it concentrate. The pressure switches can be bought from ebay to automate the unit if so desired.

There is a lot to be said about a commercial evaporator...nearly impossible to get all the refinements that todays units have but AUF & AOF are big advantages. Then you have the slope and location of the slope to get a great rolling boil in the flue pan. It can be done but better check out a commercial unit first.

If nothing else remember; the most tragic thing is to dump sap, because you cant process fast enough. And under high vac peak flow is .2gallons/hour per tap...per Cornell U.

Ben

[Loch Muller]

I went through the same decision myself this year. The ideal situation for me might have been an RO and an average 2x6 evaporator for a potential 400-600 taps. Some the people posting in this thread advised me in that direction and they are probably right. In the end (it's never really over) I found a 30"x8 evaporator used to replace my 2x4 along with a vacuum set up and sap tanks that were in my price range. That setup will have to work for now since I don't have a lot of funds to get my operation going and do not want to borrow money. I also enjoy cutting wood and have plenty of crooked pine trees to feed through my wood splitter. This year I'll run 300-400 taps, half on vacuum, then see where I can go from there. So I'd say to keep the ideal setup in mind but look around at other options that might get the job done with a lower capital investment.

[maple flats]

While my wife balked at buying the RO, she finally agreed after remembering 2- 20 hour long boils the season before. She now tells visitors it isthe best maple investment we ever made. My wife stays out of the woods in cold weather, but she does help boil most days while I check for leaks and haul sap.