filter press

[peterjd89]

I was wondering if a cone filter unit or a maple jet filter press would work ok for about 500 taps. I'm just not quite set up or ready for a filter press this year
I don t have any experience with either one. Any sugguestion or ideas are great thanks

[BreezyHill]

My friend you are nt going to like what I have to share with you. We started sugaring when I was 5 in 1971...we used cones, filter trays, filter racks, and finally a filter press in the 1990's. What a time saver. Since 2012 we have been retubing my dads bush and expanding. We are looking for a larger press as ours is not big enough and we will be at 750 this season again. Expanding our feed sales for our mill and have no time to doing anything extra this spring.

The time you save with a press is worth the investment. I dread the thought of even looking at a cone filter. We hung them, had a custom cane for them, rolled them to press out the syrup left in them. You name it we probably tried it. Huge waste of time for us. They couldn't keep up with the draw off of the 2x6 with RO turned down and now with xle membranes and it cranking...nightmare waiting to happen.

IMO 250 and up you need a press...small is a good place to start, but larger will save you time washing plates and changing papers. Yes that is right they are like babies when it gets backed up you will have to change them and there will be plenty of brown on the papers...lucky thing is this smells much good. LOL

BEST WISHES!

Ben

[unc23win]

You should check out a Lapierre Siro press they make a 12" and a 24". I have a 24 inch and love it. Easy and fast to clean and they use very little DE and actually use the sugar sand to filter the syrup. No matter the size of the run it takes about 5-10 minutes to tear it down and put it back together. Check them out on the Lapierre website there is a video.

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

There are many options for filtering syrup. My family has been producing syrup in this location for just shy of 200 years. Until I expanded from 1500 to 8000+ taps 8 years ago, we always used cone filters. The key is to start with a wet filter, keep the syrup hot, and replace/change the prefilter as soon as it starts to slow up. Is a filter press a handy tool? You bet, and I would find it difficult to filter the volume of syrup I now produce without one. For 500 taps I do not feel a press is necessary. Nice to have but not necessary. I only filtered syrup without one for 50 years so I probably don't know much.

[Sugarmaker]

Have a SIRO canister filter also (12 inch) and really like it a lot! Just did 16 gallons of syrup through it Tuesday over a 6 hour period. At 400 taps yor more you really may need a press. We have about 850 taps this year. We ran into the filtering bottleneck two years ago with the felts. Just took a lot of time trying to get syrup through a two cone set up.
Regards,
Chris

[Ontario Ian]

you can defiantly get by with a cone, I used to use them. just have a couple on hand and you can wash them as needed

[peterjd89]

Thanks guys I got a better idea now