first RO rinse of season question

[blissville maples]

After storing ro with glycol and preservative last year, what is best start up option. i will be using well water. so thinking I should start with a rinse say 50-75 gallons to rid glycol and preservative, then wash, then rinse again. is the wash necessary at beginning of season?? curious how experienced operators have done with continued success, is a one year old membrane so want to do the best/right thing.

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

rinse with soft water. If it is a 600 gallon machine use 600 gallons of water, a 1200 gallon machine, use 1200 gallons to rinse, etc. If your well water has a lot of minerals be careful as you can plug the membrane with minerals. I use first run sap that is flushing my lines. Make some permeate with the concentrate going to the drain, then run the permeate through as a rinse. If it was properly washed in the spring a good rinse is all that is necessary.

[maple flats]

I do the same. For example my RO is a 250. I take the first sap and get 175 gal of permeate from it, sending that concentrate to drain. Then I rinse the RO, and as I do, the permeate it makes goes into my permeate tank and gets used to get up to 250 gal +/- (approx.). Then you are ready to go. If you have soft water you can do it with water, but not hard water and not chlorinated water.

[Urban Sugarmaker]

At the CDL RO presentation at Verona, the CDL rep said regular water from a well is fine for pre-season rinse. He also said that even municipal water is fine. The key difference is that you should NEVER concentrate either of those waters. In other words, never run the unit under pressure. High flow and low pressure for rinse is what he recommended. This can greatly reduce the amount of permeate you would need to rinse your membranes before starting to concentrate sap you will use. Apparently hard water and chlorinated water do their damage when the membrane is under pressure.

[blissville maples]

thanks, good info. I like the idea of using early sap that would normally go on ground- saves water but how does rinsing with dirty water work?? also makes good sense about high flow low pressure, as the pressure is what would embed the minerals or anything else for that matter in membrane, I will check water with a TDS meter anyways.