Hyperbrix?

[madmapler]

With the growing interest and speculation regarding Lapierres hyperbrix RO, I'm curious how these things work(what makes them different) and what they might cost. I did a search on their website and found nothing. Anybody know anything?... Dr. Perkins maybe?

[DrTimPerkins]

We have a Lapierre HYPERBRIX RO (5 post, 3 regular and 2 high-pressure) and a Lapierre Volcano oil-fired arch with HYPERBRIX pans.

The RO works by having 3 normal membranes in parallel which feed 2 high-pressure (HYPERBRIX) membranes. Will take sap from the regular 2% to 30-35% in one pass. We boil about 2.3 gal of concentrate to make 1 gal of syrup.

The evaporator is mostly front pan. It is a 4' x 12' rig with a 4' backpan and 8' (all one piece) front pan. It uses a Riello burner, so heat can be continuously controlled from 20% (low fire) to 100%. Ours is equipped with an automatic defoaming system, modulating autodraw, and fluepan and front pan washing system. Has almost put me out of a job....pretty simple to operate and very steady when running. It does take a little attention at startup and when switching sides to make sure the gradient is developing properly, but once you know the techniques to use and when to pay attention, it is easy.

Just started using it this season. Have boiled about 27-28 hrs. Thus far we are quite happy with it. We are testing different membranes and washing procedures. So far the syrup it produces has been very good....haven't really noticed any major difference from previous rigs...perhaps a bit lighter than normal. We do seem to use less defoamer oil (organic) than we did with our previous semi-automatic (dripper) system, which is a plus.

[ennismaple]

Thanks for the feedback Dr Tim. How many GPH of raw sap does that unit process?

I wonder how it will handle the late season sap that is often difficult to pre-filter?

[Urban Sugarmaker]

Seems like this could be the future for large producers. The oil:syrup ratio has to be very low. I imagine the payback period is quite short?

[DrTimPerkins]

Thanks for the feedback Dr Tim. How many GPH of raw sap does that unit process?

I've been dealing mainly with the evaporator and not the RO directly, but I think it's been running around 1000-1100 gph in the early season. Lapierre just swapped out the high-pressure membranes for something different, and the processing rate definitely jumped up a good bit. I don't think it was because the first set had degraded, just that it was a different type of membrane and they performed better than the first type.


I wonder how it will handle the late season sap that is often difficult to pre-filter?

Part of what we are looking at is cleaning methods, so should know quite a lot more by the end of the season I imagine.

[DrTimPerkins]

The oil:syrup ratio has to be very low. I imagine the payback period is quite short?

Again, we only have about 28 hrs running this evaporator, but I think we're looking at somewhere in the vicinity of 0.18 gal Kerosene (slightly lower BTU content than fuel oil) per gal of syrup. We'll have a lot more to report at the end of the season once we've had a chance to collate all the data.

[David in MI]

I was reviewing some of the H2O Innovation high brix ROs and noticed the large amp draws on these machines. Wondering if electricity could become one of the limiting factors.

[DrTimPerkins]

I was reviewing some of the H2O Innovation high brix ROs and noticed the large amp draws on these machines. Wondering if electricity could become one of the limiting factors.

That would depend more than anything else upon your electrical service. But no....you aren't going to run one of these machines on a 15 amp extension cord run off your garage outlet.

[madmapler]

We have a Lapierre HYPERBRIX RO (5 post, 3 regular and 2 high-pressure) and a Lapierre Volcano oil-fired arch with HYPERBRIX pans.

The RO works by having 3 normal membranes in parallel which feed 2 high-pressure (HYPERBRIX) membranes. Will take sap from the regular 2% to 30-35% in one pass. We boil about 2.3 gal of concentrate to make 1 gal of syrup.

The evaporator is mostly front pan. It is a 4' x 12' rig with a 4' backpan and 8' (all one piece) front pan. It uses a Riello burner, so heat can be continuously controlled from 20% (low fire) to 100%. Ours is equipped with an automatic defoaming system, modulating autodraw, and fluepan and front pan washing system. Has almost put me out of a job....pretty simple to operate and very steady when running. It does take a little attention at startup and when switching sides to make sure the gradient is developing properly, but once you know the techniques to use and when to pay attention, it is easy.

Just started using it this season. Have boiled about 27-28 hrs. Thus far we are quite happy with it. We are testing different membranes and washing procedures. So far the syrup it produces has been very good....haven't really noticed any major difference from previous rigs...perhaps a bit lighter than normal. We do seem to use less defoamer oil (organic) than we did with our previous semi-automatic (dripper) system, which is a plus.
Thanks. I look forward to hearing more.

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

H20 has had one of these for a couple years, may have been the first one to market but not sure. Anyway, spoke with Kyle about it 2 years ago and they are obviously custom built to order. He didn't give me a price or quote, but I remember him saying with all the bells and whistles, close to $80k.

[madmapler]

H20 has had one of these for a couple years, may have been the first one to market but not sure. Anyway, spoke with Kyle about it 2 years ago and they are obviously custom built to order. He didn't give me a price or quote, but I remember him saying with all the bells and whistles, close to $80k.

I wonder if anyone will be offering a hyperbrix upgrade to at the end of an existing RO?

[DrTimPerkins]

I believe that may be possible in some cases.

[BAP]

It will be interesting to hear how the total cost of production with this new equipment compares to regular equipment. Obviously, electric usage is higher but fuel oil is less. Equipment cost must be a lot higher, but I image you could get by with a smaller evaporator than what it would normally take.

[Moser's Maple]

From my understanding Lapierre offers both a stand alone unit and a unit that can be added to your existing ro. Cost wise what I have been told is on a completely new setup where you spend more on a hyper brix ro is almost off set by the lesser costing set of pans. I was told the pans are cheaper because the flue pan is so much smaller and front pan is bigger. Flat pans are cheaper to build compared to flue pans.

[GeneralStark]

So D+G has the EcoVap (electric evap.) http://remagazine.coop/vermont-electric-maple-syrup/ coupled with a high brix ro, there are the oil rigs with the smaller flue pan, but what about a wood-fired rig? Or do you just use a half pint?

[ennismaple]

I've been dealing mainly with the evaporator and not the RO directly, but I think it's been running around 1000-1100 gph in the early season. A little lower than I would have expected but not too shabby - especially when you can turn 1100 gallons of raw sap into about 65 gallons of concentrate! The RO must run a lot and the evaporator runs very little.

Say you had 8000 gallons of sap to process - that means the RO runs for 8 hours and produces just over 500 gallons of concentrate. With that 4x12 rig you'd be getting 150-175 GPH processing? So you boil just over 3 hours to make 200 gallons of syrup and only burn 36 gallons of fuel. Sounds like a good days work to me!

[Homestead Maple]

It would be interesting to have someone work out the economy of the hyper brix setup, (cost of machine $80,000, plus the evaporator change cost to handle the high brix $20,000 plus for a new evaporator, cost of 5 membrane replacement after 2, 3, 4, years? etc.) A RO machine that will only process 1,000 to 1,100 gph is sized for what sized operation, 5,000 taps maybe? Seems like the payback will be a long time out even if you factor in less fuel consumption. The question of an adequate electric service to run these machines also has to be a factor.

[BAP]

It would be interesting to have someone work out the economy of the hyper brix setup, (cost of machine $80,000, plus the evaporator change cost to handle the high brix $20,000 plus for a new evaporator, cost of 5 membrane replacement after 2, 3, 4, years? etc.) A RO machine that will only process 1,000 to 1,100 gph is sized for what sized operation, 5,000 taps maybe? Seems like the payback will be a long time out even if you factor in less fuel consumption. The question of an adequate electric service to run these machines also has to be a factor.
Plus the cost of extra electricity which is not cheap in some areas.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

We have guys running master oil evaporators making 5 to 5.6 gallons of syrup per gallon of oil at 20 to 22 brix. Not sure where the energy savings will ever pay back even if oil was $10 gallon.

[DrTimPerkins]

Not sure where the energy savings will ever pay back even if oil was $10 gallon.

All maple operations are different and have different goals and methods to achieve those goals. The Hyperbrix system certainly cuts back on fuel usage in a big way, but additionally, cuts boiling time down significantly. Last year we had several 8-10 hr boils. This year the longest we've had is 5 hrs, and we added nearly 750 taps since last year and have had some of the biggest syrup production days we've ever had. It's been awful nice to have a spare 4-5 hrs on those days. Alternatively, you can have a far smaller evaporator at lower cost than boiling lower brix concentrate.

At 5,000 taps we are certainly at the very low end of the number of taps required for these systems (although given out production we probably are more like an operation of 7,000-7,500 taps). Our interest is in researching these systems from a number of perspectives. We certainly don't mean to imply that everyone should run out and buy one of these and do it this way....but it sure has been (and I expect it will continue to be) a very interesting subject, and we think that the information we can generate will be helpful for others to determine whether this might be an approach to consider in their sugaring operation.

[Homestead Maple]

Ok, we'll watch the forums and for the research papers that will have the numbers that will show the economics of a system that uses this setup.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Dr Tim,

What size are you running and what is the evaporation rate of the evaporator you are running?? I agree with more time in the woods is better as money is made in the woods not the sugarhouse.

[DrTimPerkins]

What size are you running and what is the evaporation rate of the evaporator you are running?? I agree with more time in the woods is better as money is made in the woods not the sugarhouse.

The evaporator is 4' x 12' (4' backpan, 8' syrup pan). I'll report on all the detailed measurements when the season is over.

[Maple Man 85]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INOoT4EGZgI

Here's the latest video from Proctor.