Sap difference

[spike in wi]

Here's my dilema. We've run about 400 gallons of our sap through the RO with no problems whatsoever. Another guy wanted us to run some for him(80 gallons). We put his through our filter to the nurse tank and it plugged that filter after about 40 gallons. We could run about 150 to 200 of our sap without changing filters. We then put a new prefilter into the ro and started ro ing. It did not take long and the prefilter was slowed down a bunch. Changed out prefilter and ran some more and plugged again. This was. on about 80 gallons of sap. This was yesterday. This morning we only had about 100 gallons of our own to do and the ro ran perfectly again. We are pretty good about being clean and sanitized.

I do know his buckets had some smutz on the bottom of them and I don't know if his bags were new or washed out from last year. Could there be some kink of mold that is effecting the ro? I don't want to screw up our membrane trying to help out someone else. Or maybe not an issue. Thoughts. Spike

[Jeff E]

I am always a bit warry of running others sap.
I don't do batches for others because of these types of issues. You just don't know what their practices are, how fresh the sap is, etc.

If you can get a commitment from other that they will collect in clean equipment, Collect every other day or so, deliver it in clean tanks, filter the sap, then OK. I run all my sap through a 5 micron prefilter before it gets into the RO. That really helps.

[DrTimPerkins]

How long has his sap been sitting in buckets or tanks before he brought it to you? Is it ropey / stringy at all (dip something into it and pull it out and see if it comes off in drops like normal sap or water or if it forms little gloopy (scientific term :) ) strings. How does it smell? Is it really cloudy?

If it shows ANY sign of ropiness at all...do NOT run it through your RO. He can take it back home and dump it or you can dump it on the ground right there. That is all it is worth.

If it isn't ropey, but just cloudy, you have to decide whether it is worth your time and filter cost to concentrate it. What he gets in return should reflect the effort and cost you have to put into processing it. If it is fermented (smells bad and cloudy), I would probably also not run it.

It might be just the first collection crud (not uncommon)....but if it continues that way, you might have to pull the plug on it.

[spike in wi]

His sap had been in the bags about as long as ours were. Thats why I was wondering if it was possible that mold would be there that quickly. All i know is that the RO doesn't like it. The gauge on the RO did jump around and not hold steady pressure. I think the prefilter was the problem on that as it couldn't stay full. We use 10 micron prefilters. Thanks for your responses. Spike