Filter press ratings

[sugarphil]

Hello guys,

I'm looking into filter press and have a hard time finding flow rates for these things. Could any of you share your experience with me as to what model and flowrate you get with filter press ?

Thanks

[brookledge]

A lot of variables. What size press what size pump. How plugged the papers are. My 7 inch is around 2 gallons per minute when I start and then it slows down as it fills up
Keith

[sugarphil]

So about 120 gal/hour would you say ?

[mellondome]

Not with having to breakdown , clean, repaper.
What is your daily production?

[sugarphil]

Me and my father in law are going to tap 450 maple this year on tubing and vaccum. I was told I could get a daily sap production of between 0 to 600 Gal a day and we have a 45 gal/evaporated water per hour evaporator.

Last year (a bad year), we had about half this number of tap (200), no vaccum and we pulled out about 20 Gal of syrup by the end of the season. We had a smaller evap, we had to boil for about 16 hours before we'd start making syrup and we would draw about 2Gal per hour.

Now this year, I think we should be getting about twice or 4 x this rate because we have twice the taps, vaccum and the maple we have tapped are in much wetter soil downhill form the last year installation.

I think a filter press could be overkill, but I was wondering when do someone start to think about getting such a press.

On a side note, last year, we would wait for our syrup to get to the right temp in the finishing pan and we would then draw our 2 gal, pretty much in one straight event, filtering it with felt. We found out this year that it would apparently be better to draw a slow continuous stream of syrup and stop it when the temp would go down.

Now, it seems to me that the fillter press is better suited to filter one batch per filter session and not a continuous slow flow ?

What kind of labour/time is needed to dissasemble/clean/rebuild such a press ? It seems a messy/time consuming and water usage intensive process to do.

[mellondome]

For the tap count uou list, a short bank 7" press would be fine. You should be able to get 15 gal filtered on average before having to refresh the press. Yes, it is more of a batch process than a continuous flow for a press. When I was at your tap count, I would filter once... when I was done boiling for the day.

[maple flats]

Now that we see some numbers, the 7" short bank is good (3 sets of plates), then as you grow you can add 2 more sets of plates with no other modifications. If you add 1 set, you may need to make 2 spacers for the large wing nuts on the clamping rods. With 5 sets of plates last year I ran the sap from my 1320 taps as well as I bought the sap from another 900 +/- taps and the filtering went well.
The big thing about filter plates is the cavity size. My older Aluminum Lapierre FP has narrow cavities (about 1"?) while some newer ones have thicker hollow sections which allow you to filter more before you need to change the papers. Even a 3 section 7" FP has good flow rates on new papers, but the hollow plates where the FA (filter aid) along with the sugar sand fill up sooner. When they get filled, you need to shut down, break the filter down and remove the filter cake (the FA + sugar sand) that filled them. In my operation, with 3 sets of plates I usually got between 15-30 gal filtered before needing to remove the filter cake in early season, in late season it was typically half that. Now with 5 sets I get 40 gal + on a set of papers in early season and generally half that in late season. These numbers vary season to season because the sugar sand is different year to year.
When using a FP you need to find how much FA you need just by trial and error. To much and the plates fill too soon, too little and the papers plug and the pressure climbs too high before the the plates are full.

[Tapit1234]

I'm new to filter presses going to have about 800 taps I'm looking at a 7" 3 frame press might be a dumb question but does the syrup come out just as clean as it would with one that has 5 or 10 frames is it just how often you have to change the papers and fewer gallons pressed before it needs to be cleaned Thanks

[unc23win]

I'm new to filter presses going to have about 800 taps I'm looking at a 7" 3 frame press might be a dumb question but does the syrup come out just as clean as it would with one that has 5 or 10 frames is it just how often you have to change the papers and fewer gallons pressed before it needs to be cleaned Thanks

You got it!

A Siro filter from Lapierre is worth looking at as well I have a 24" and like it a lot. They are very fast to clean and get back to filtering. When you need to clean them. Depending on how fast you make syrup they can do over 100 gallons before they need cleaning. If it clogs you take it apart and wash it and your back to filtering. You use about 1 cup of aid for the first 5 gallons and that is it and even less aid with more sugar sand.