RO affecting grade

[maple flats]

Since part of the equasion for how light or dark a syrup is has to do with the amount of time it spends in the evaporator, does an RO help you get more light and medium? Most years I have gotten mostly light and Med, but the way this year went I ended up with more dark and even made some grade B which I have never gotten in the past. If everything is kept clean and tanks etc are cleaned regularly will an RO help make the lighter syrup?

[powerdub]

It did not seem to help me this year. The sap seemed to have a mind of its own.

[mountainvan]

It did'nt help me either this year. I made more extra dark than any other year in 14 years. Seems everyone I've talked to around here did more dark, b, and c with or without ro's.

[Russell Lampron]

I was wondering if mine was having the opposite effect this year. I started out at dark went to B and even darker than B but in NH I can call it B because it taste good. I made 5 gallons of buddy syrup and then made some medium amber and very light dark amber to finish out the season after eliminating the Red Maples I had tapped. Over all I would say that it doesn't seem to make a difference one way or the other.

Russ

[Homestead Maple]

I was wondering if mine was having the opposite effect this year. I started out at dark went to B and even darker than B but in NH I can call it B because it taste good. I made 5 gallons of buddy syrup and then made some medium amber and very light dark amber to finish out the season after eliminating the Red Maples I had tapped. Over all I would say that it doesn't seem to make a difference one way or the other.

Russ
Russ,
I made a little B to start the season and the rest has been either Med. or Dark. The syrup I made tonight was Med. so I don't think that the RO has made me any lighter syrup. It wasn't until the sap started to clear up back a week and a half ago that my syrup turned more towards the Med. I think the trees needed to adjust some from the start so the long cold spell the end of March has helped the grade here more than anything.
Bill

[ennismaple]

An RO will result in lighter coloured syrup simply because the sap spends less time in the evaporator. The faster you can boil the lighter your syrup will be.

[802maple]

If you have a R.O. you will make lighter syrup because you can process it faster so that it doesn't sit around in tanks as long. It takes that sugar molecule just as long to go through the evaporator because it still has to go the same distance as it would whether it is consentrated or not, there are just more molecules together. The only increase in evaporation you will get will be the additional amount of syrup that you make per hour.

[Russell Lampron]

Interesting theory Jerry. I never thought of it that way before. That would explain why I still make plenty of dark syrup. I do have larger draw offs but they come about as often as they used to. For the most part the quantity of syrup increased and that is about all.

Heard you wanted Matt to call me for an emergency run to Maine with my RO machine last night. Boiling raw sap sucks don't it.

Russ

[802maple]

Its been along time since I boiled raw sap and going from 22-24 percent to 1.2 is something else, alot of wood and enough syrup for breaksfast, willy was looking for RamOna in a bad way

[Russell Lampron]

Yes Willy and RamOna need to get together in a bad way. They have had a couple of dates but no commitment yet.

Russ

[maple flats]

Interesting. I had not thought of it that way, but if I now draw about 2 gph with 2% it makes sense that I would only draw about 10 gpm if I went to 10%, but that is a gain of 8 gph thru the evap which might help grade slightly. I guess I need to concentrate on building a preheater and tweaking everything, + forced draft before I consider an RO. But, this is the first season I have not had a majority of my syrup be light or med, and I have never made grade B before this year. This might not be a good season to rate things the way it went, starting very slow and with long freezes in the middle. I have not finished everything yet but should this weekend for tally but it looks like I may have nearly 50% grade B. For me the end just kept going and going but with small runs. I only had 3 runs all season where I boiled for over 4 hours to finish up a day's sap. I also think I likely could have re sanitised the tubing buring the season. The tubing started great, really clean but after the season I now see a few nasty looking spots. I will try re sanitising mid season if a season runs like this again.

[802maple]

This was not a good year to guage anything on as the most frequent question I heard was" what am I doing wrong" and my only answer that I could come up with is nothing. It was only mother nature screwing with us. All one could do was do the best you could, If you kept everything clean, boiled your sap and didn't hold onto it, which is the most important way to keep grade even if you have a UV light. Then if you answer yes to both of those you did all you could do

[Homestead Maple]

I know what you mean. When did anyone ever boil near yellow, or cloudy, or funny smelling, or sap with white flaky stuff in it, or sap that looked like it had been around for 5 days and still make good tasting Med. or Dark syrup. I think if anyone had clear sap it probably made commercial syrup. Just kidding, it but sure was one of the most different seasons I've seen in 20+ for the color and quality of sap vs. syrup.

[Russell Lampron]

I boiled a lot of yellowish and cloudy sap this season as well and made some of the best tasting syrup ever with it. If I was in Vermont I would have had to call it commercial because of the color. Such a shame because the flavor was excellent. Luckily in New Hampshire I can still call it grade B and have sold most of it retail already. I am keeping some for the family private stock.

Russ

[WF MASON]

I'm really suprized to hear people say the RO didn't help their grade , every sugarhouse I stopped at this year who were using an RO the fancy was pouring out the drawoff, thoses who didn't have one I saw molasses comming off. Even on final boils a couple places were still making fancy, I always assumed it had to be the RO. I was at Goodrichs monday morning , drums beside the evaporator still hot,really hot from the sunday nite boil, grade bottle showed fancy till the end. Seeing this same thing at other sugarhouses , it has to be the RO.

[802maple]

The R.O. does help in the sense that the sap doesn't sit around in storage as long, Also i think you will find although I am not sure, that Goodrichs' have a bubbler in their evaporator, which will lightnen up the color. A lot of the later upper level sugarbushes ie Goodrichs did make Fancy right to the end. A neighbor who had never made any Fancy in his 10 years of sugaring made fancy late this year and he didn't have a R.O. His first half of the season he was making commercial

[markcasper]

I have no r.o. and is true that an ro will speed up the process, hence the sap won't be sitting around as long. Alot has to do with the weather and condition of sap. I had sap that was crappy coming out of the lines the whole last week of March and in April until the 5 day freeze up. I highly doubt running that crap through an r.o. would have lightened it up any. It was to be commercial no matter what.

Then, in April, like right after Easter and the whole week after I made lots of dark, medium and a fair amount of light and thats when the sap was running good every day. Problem there is this. I tried some of the light amber on pancakes yesterday and couldn't eat 1/2 of it. It was that bad of an off flavor. And to think theres a couple hndred gallons like that. Whats a guy to do??

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[royalmaple]

I'm sold, Even if you don't go up a whole grade, which may not be true all the time, my syrup did lighten up. But the biggest advantage to me was turning the sap into syrup quicker, less wood, less time, same amount of syrup. I'd still have sap to boil now. And if you are getting crapy sap, your still not going to be boiling for 3 days straight to make the 10 gallons of commercial. In fact that would be some of the most advantageous sap to run through the RO to make it really more cost effective to produce. Why just run the good sap through the ro, and struggle with the low end sap to make the low end syrup?

I had a tough time to get my sap processed each day, it was impossible even with the serious hours of boiling I was doing. So some might say, easy fix was I had too many taps, true. But I wanted to make some syrup, so next fix is to add something to help process the sap more efficiently and quicker.

I want to be up around 1200 on vacuum next year, with an RO, giddee up.

[markcasper]

I definately need an ro, not trying to make excuses here. But I need a new buliding first or there will be no ro. Am not going to add onto to a hog shcak at my fathers place just to be able to put in ro.

Righttit, Idaho, Whats up with the wringing the prefilter out? Are you talking yours or royal maple? Tanks nutted?? I must not have graduated kindergarten, pardon me??

[royalmaple]

It is all in the testing and RESEARCH that shows what an RO will do for you.

[802maple]

Matt- No one never has to many taps just not enough equipment to process it. Next year with a R.O. and 1200 taps the fever will set in and you will be getting the maples up by the sawmill.

6 years ago when all I did was boil raw sap I wouldn't have felt bad for you, but after coming up and boiling with you that night after boiling 24% percent sap for the last 5 years, I felt your pain. I decided that night if I ever had to boil raw sap again you would find me stepping in front of the nearest log truck. LOL

[royalmaple]

If I get that up there, your talking a load more than 1200 taps, it would be several thousand for sure. Then we hit full production.

boiling Raw sap is like riding a big wheel around the house, vs ro and a like opening up a dragster on the strip.

apples and oranges.

I prefer oranges now...

[802maple]

Better be navel oranges, they are a little sweeter

[maplwrks]

Matt,
Don't be afraid of it----- I may be up to close to 6000 taps next year!
Probably need my head evamined!!!!

[Russell Lampron]

Mark what I think Matt was talking about with the pre filter is that it was so slimy that they had to hold onto it with 2 hands just so that it wouldn't slip out of their hands.

Jerry I know what you mean by jumping in front of a logging truck. I don't like boiling raw sap either.

When the tanks are nutted you need to hammer it. Especially when the sap is pounding into the releaser.

Russ

[royalmaple]

Just make sure your lines are dead nuts or you'll be sorry.

Mike so here you go, gotta give me a run. I was going to try and catch you next year. But you gotta up the stakes. me and jerry saw about 2K here at the house if we do the secret alternative tapping method, still under investigation and research papers have not been printed yet.

But if you do 6K you gotta tap them, no cheating and buying sap.
Or we'll have to come up with a multiplier factor to calculate the total taps.

But I won't add 2 taps if I don't have an RO next year. That is for sure.

[802maple]

Sounds like the race is on to see how many taps a 2.5 x 8 can do. Any other takers out there, must be somebody lurking in the shadows to give Matt and Mike a little competition.

[Breezy Lane Sugarworks]

If I can get the taps I'm trying to get right now(some for next year and the rest add as I can), I'll be needing a COMPLETELY different set-up. 8000+ has GOT to be too much for a 2.5x8. But I AM going to put it to the MAX. I'll let you know when I get there, LOL!

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Ryan,

At 22% sap and 100 gph, that's 25 gallon of syrup per hour or 1,000+ of raw sap per hour, don't think you would have too much problem. Wouldn't be too many days you would be boiling 8 hours and if you did, 200 gallon of syrup in 8 hours on a 2.5 x 8.

[802maple]

I think Alan Dustin in New Hampshire might be ahead of you guys,but I am not sure. At one time he had around 3500 to 4000 on a 2x6, but when I talked to him last fall he was getting a big evaporator, I think he said he was getting 2.5 x 8 and was going to be around 6000 or more. I haven't talked with him since so I am not sure if he did it or not. I know he sometimes gets on this site, maybe he will see this is

[Breezy Lane Sugarworks]

Nothing is in stone yet...that'll only happen if I can work this deal out!

[royalmaple]

Brandon-

That is a neat way of looking at it, then if you figure I think I can get about 45-50 gallons of sap in my flue pan and the front holds about 8-9 so say almost solid 50 gallons in the rig, your cycling 1/2 the pans volume into syrup each hour. That would be amazing.

my trees might be something like this
8000 gallons of sap at 1.5% =547.9 gallons of concentrate @22%
100gph(next year) = 5.5 hours of boiling
57.3:1=139.6 gallons of syrup. Wow more than this seasons total in one days run.

Or flip side, 8000 gallons/ 50gph and 160 hours(6.6 day marathon) of boiling. Can you stretch a day into 160 hours? I think you'd finish boiling your raw sap on my rig in december sometime if you collected everyday. I guess that is not too bad.

Ryan you won't get 22% sap without RamOna, unless you got some secret trees.

Jerry I drove by the saw mill today, If I tap those trees that will be some tubing system in there and some serious taps.

[Breezy Lane Sugarworks]

I certainly wouldn't start at 22%. that's for sure. probably start at 10 or so, then work my way up so I can still keep syrup in the syrup pans and not let it build back to the flue pan!!!

[802maple]

Ryan- If your going to boil 22% percent go ahead and do it. That is a old wives tale that it will back up into the flue pan. As steady as you were running your rig you will not have any problem. You do a good job keeping a steady fire, when I told you that it might be hard I didn't know your firing technique. Boiling that sweet is the easiest sap there is to boil as it is constantly coming off the evaporator and not backing up. I forgot how hard it was to boil raw sap until I helped Matt out, not just the fact of having to boil away so much sap for so little syrup, it is just so much harder to get out of the evaporator verses 22- 24 sap.

Matt- all you need to do is blow some of the mold off that money that you have hidden away and tap every devil tree in the area and buy Willy a mail order bride with six columns and you will be making syrup so fast that you will have to filter next summer.

[Breezy Lane Sugarworks]

We'll see what happens next year as to what percent gets run....But for sure there WILL be an RO (not sure what one, but working on it) in that sugarhouse come hell or high water because raw sap has become a thing of the past for me since 4/15/07! Everyhting will just go so much smoother!

[Russell Lampron]

I discovered how nice it was to have RamOna around 3 years ago and was reminded how much I would miss her if she wasn't there when I too helped Matt boil. That 1.2% sap is slow moving stuff.

Matt how much wood would you use in those 5.5 hours at 22%? That is the best reason to get RamOna for Willy right there. Even if you crank out the concentrate at the rate that Willy will boil it off you will see a significant savings. Boiling is fun but there isn't much time for sleep when you have to mix in work and all of the other maple related things that have to be done.

Brandon you need to think about getting an RO for your operation. It would give you more time to spend with your family and you could process your sap sooner to make a better product.

Russ

[royalmaple]

I bet I'd use 1/3 - 1/2 cord in 5 hours. Pretty easily.

I'll have to get the pledge out and do some dusting.