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[Z/MAN]

Well I finally dropped the cash and bought a RO. Had 5 days in a row last year with 100 to 175 gallons of sap waiting to boil. Those long boils get old fast so I bought a R20 kit from The RO Bucket. It should be more then I need but that means I can tap more trees. :o This is definitely a sickness! :lol:

[VT_K9]

You'll like having the RO. Just remember once you RO you really need to get it boiled so it does not spoil. What I mean is don't RO one day and then boil the next. Check the past posts get some details on timelines, but you'll still want to boil it that day. The RO is probably the best upgrade to saving time...I mean getting more time in the woods to expand....I mean check your lines...maybe dream about expansion.

Mike

[Skeller001]

I don't have many trees but bought one of the RO Buckets last year. I love it since it cuts my boil time down by 2/3.

[Openwater]

Hey Skeller, Perry County, PA here.
I just bought a RO5 bucket but haven't used it yet. How/when do you use it? Do you collect the permeate and concentrate into different buckets/containers, or do you just put the end of the concentrate output tube into the raw sap tank and just keep recycling/running the sap/concentrate mixture until it reaches your desired SC%? Do you run it overnight before a boiling day? Or do you collect and chill/freeze your concentrate?
Thanks for any tips or advice.

[Skeller001]

I use it as soon as I get back from collecting. I run out of the collection buckets in to a pure water bucket and concentrated sap buckets until I have run all of my sap. I then run that concentrate in to another set of buckets. At the end I have sap around 7.5-8 percent sugar. As the sugar percentage goes up you need to adjust it. The way I do it you just adjust it twice. If you continued to cycle it I would think you would be playing around with it the entire time. I use 5 gallon buckets but if I had more trees I would use bigger tanks. I then take the end product and freeze it till the weekend when I boil it all off at once.

[maple flats]

Yes, there is a temperature at which you can hold concentrate. Dr Tim posted a chart on that someplace. It all depends on the sugar%. It doesn't need to freeze 1-2 degrees above works well. A friend of mine bought 1150 gal of my sap over a 4 day period, while my wife kept boiling what we had in our sugarhouse tanks (the last year before we had our RO). Those 4 days, were Friday-Monday, he ran it thru his RO each day and sent it to a working tank that cooled it to 30F. The following Sat and Sunday was Open house weekend. He made some nice medium amber with it. He kept half, I got the other half (a 30 gal barrel full).

[Maplewalnut]

Congrats Zman...long overdue. Have a great season

Mike

[ir3333]

Can somebody educate me on a hobby size RO?

[ecolbeck]

ir3333, I would start here (https://www.therobucket.com/) and here (https://sites.google.com/view/mattatuckmadnessmaplesyrup/home?authuser=0)

[therealtreehugger]

Hi Openwater - I have the RO10. When I am going to boil, I start up the OR first and put the concentrate directly into the pan. I get about an inch in the pan, then lite the fire. By the time I get a boil on, I have accumulated 5-10 gal of concentrate, which then trickles down into the pan. I boil off about 10 gph, on a good day, and the RO keeps right up with it. I collect the permeate for cleanup.

[Openwater]

Thanks RealTreeHugger and Steve.

So it sounds like Steve RO's and then stores his concentrate to boil "later", whereas RealTreeHugger RO's, essentially, while he's boiling.
I've got alot variables I have yet to figure out. I have no idea how much sap production to expect from my trees and I have no idea how fast my evaporator will boil sap.

Over the weekend I was able to clear more brush/vines from around 10 more red maples, so now I'm up to 26 red maples and 21 black walnuts for a total of 50 taps; alot more than I would have predicted a few months ago, but still no idea how much sap to expect. I do know that I have a greater capacity for "cool" storage of sap, than cold/freezing capacity for concentrate storage, so I'll probably start out RO'ing while boiling with a little pre-RO'ed sap to start with.

[Skeller001]

Open water, I also do that sometimes. Sometimes I Ro and freeze Sunday thru Wednesday. Thur and Friday I just store in cold. I then thaw the frozen out overnight Friday into Saturday. Saturday I throw that in and Ro anything I have left including a last minute sap run while I am boiling.

[ir3333]

ir3333, I would start here (https://www.therobucket.com/) and here (https://sites.google.com/view/mattatuckmadnessmaplesyrup/home?authuser=0)

Great info TX!

[therealtreehugger]

Keep in mind that if you start RO-ing, and you end up boiling faster than you can RO, there is no harm in putting raw sap in the pan. Better than burning it. I did that the first time using the RO. After the first time or two of RO-ing, you will figure out the rates that you boil at, and RO at. Then you can see how you can mesh the two.

let me clarify - I did not burn the pan the first time with the RO, I caught up to the RO, and I had to use raw un-RO-ed sap the first time I used the RO. No biggie, just helped me learn how fast things go.

[Openwater]

If I plan on boiling on a Saturday AM, and RO'ed some "start-up" sap the Friday night before, would I need to do anything with the RO Bucket overnight (flush, clean, etc) if I'm gonna get it running again in 12 hrs or less on Saturday AM? Or could I just shut it down, and let it sit in a cool/cold garage overnight?

[maple flats]

Can somebody educate me on a hobby size RO?
We can best help with advice and ideas if you give us some information. Like tap count, evaporator size, fuel source, available time to boil and do you spend more time than you would like boiling. All of that info would help. I looked at your profile, you show us none of that info.

[ir3333]

Tx mflats...I'm a 3 year newbie...on my 3rd home built evaporator..Current is a 12 x 18 syrup pan with 18 x 48 drop flue sap pan
50 taps with access to many more but not looking to go bigger. No interest in pipeline and don't mind gathering by hand..i'm retired and need the exercise.
a nice day is boiling 80 - 100 gallons starting at 09:00 and finishing around 3:00 pm.Hoping my new system will be 15 gph plus?
Love to learn, build and try new things..a nice way to keep busy in March.
How do i add to my profile?

[bigbeef]

ir333, I am new to making maple syrup too, but I have looked through RO stuff and think I can provide some help. If you look at "maple syrup RO" online, a lot of what comes up is the Aquatech 8800 booster pump setup. So a Aquatech 8800 booster pump for 100-200 gpd with transformer ($100 on amazon), a 5-micron filter ($65), and then a set a 100-150 gpd membranes ($34 each), emptying into a bucket.

Anyone please correct me if I am wrong here. 200 gpd / 24 = 8.33 gph. That pump is sized to make/filter 8.33 gallons an hour, but since maple syrup RO is doing it backwards, there is typically a 60-75% efficiency. So you can get 5 - 6.25 gallons of concentrate removed from the raw sap per hour, if you use the correct sized membranes. This would be good if you are boiling off 5-6gph and want to match the RO to your boiling rate.

If you run (2) 100 gpd membranes in parallel, (2x100gpd == 200 gpd output from the pump), they can give you (2) 50gpd concentrate output. And (2) 50 gpd permeate. You can then run your concentrate lines to a T and a third 100 gpd membrane (2x50gpd == 100gpd) and remove another 1/2 of the water from that.

I think there's a debate or something about whether to run the membranes in parallel or in series; If each membrane takes out a certain amount of water, and so the concentrate out line is less than the first supply line, you want to match the concentrate out (from the first membrane) to the capacity of the next membrane. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm 80% sure, that you won't be maximizing the amount of concentrate you get from the membranes if you run matching gpd membranes in series. Because each membrane removes water, so the next membrane isn't getting the same supply as the one before it. So a good setup would be 2 membranes in parallel, then a third in series; or 2-4 membranes in series but each one decreases in gpd.

[maple flats]

Tx mflats...I'm a 3 year newbie...on my 3rd home built evaporator..Current is a 12 x 18 syrup pan with 18 x 48 drop flue sap pan
50 taps with access to many more but not looking to go bigger. No interest in pipeline and don't mind gathering by hand..i'm retired and need the exercise.
a nice day is boiling 80 - 100 gallons starting at 09:00 and finishing around 3:00 pm.Hoping my new system will be 15 gph plus?
Love to learn, build and try new things..a nice way to keep busy in March.
How do i add to my profile?
To add to or edit your profile, click on "my profile" on the top right of the page. In there click on "about me" or "Signature" The about me will only be seen by members who go to your "about me" section the signature will appear at the bottom of every post you make as long as you check the "show your signature" box on the bottom left when you type any post. You shouldn't need to re-check that box, once checked it remains checked unless you uncheck it.

[maple flats]

With that in mind, an RO bucket (or kit) RO will do ok, maybe a 15 or a 20. either will cut the sap volume about in half, at either 15 or 20 GPH. It works well if the RO does it's job slightly faster than your evaporation rate. Then, when the RO is done, you clean it while the boil continues. With either one, you want a permeate (the pure water removed from the sap) tank at 2x the hourly rate, so a 15 wants a 30 gal food grade tank, a 20 gets a 40 gal tank, to hold permeate to use when you clean the RO.

[ir3333]

when i go to my profile and the "about me" i don't seem to be able to make changes or add anything?

[DrTimPerkins]

when i go to my profile and the "about me" i don't seem to be able to make changes or add anything?

Apparently you don't know enough about yourself. :)

OK...click on your name along the top, then in the "About me" section after the words "Biography", "Location", etc. there is a little icon that looks like a pencil. Click on those to edit your profile.

[therealtreehugger]

If I plan on boiling on a Saturday AM, and RO'ed some "start-up" sap the Friday night before, would I need to do anything with the RO Bucket overnight (flush, clean, etc) if I'm gonna get it running again in 12 hrs or less on Saturday AM? Or could I just shut it down, and let it sit in a cool/cold garage overnight?

Hey Openwater - in the process of RO-ing, you will produce some permeate (the pure clean water). Even though you plan on using the RO the next day, I would still rinse it with the permeate that you produced. It may not be enough to do a “real” rinse, but you would be surprised how fast it gets funky. And even a little funk is not what you want. It doesn’t take long to run the permeate through it while you are waiting for your boil to go down enough so you feel comfortable walking away. No need for a chemical rinse.

Last year, I rinsed with permeate well enough each use, so I only used the RO soap (that comes with the RO bucket and very good instructions) at the end of the season.

Oops - I re-read, you are not boiling fri night - I would still use whatever permeate you produced to rinse fri night, and keep it cold but not freezing to reduce bacteria growth.

[ir3333]

Apparently you don't know enough about yourself. :)

OK...click on your name along the top, then in the "About me" section after the words "Biography", "Location", etc. there is a little icon that looks like a pencil. Click on those to edit your profile.

Thanks Doc!..just can't get a signature now!

[ir3333]

TX Guys...i'm shooting for about 5 hr boils with my new set up with about 50 taps.After researching RO
I don't think i'll benefit from it right now.
I have the the property next to me which is a 10 acre sugar bush.Although i have no intension of
getting bigger the option is there and then an RO might be a good idea.