RB25 Kit

[ebliese]

Does anyone have any experience with the RO Bucket's RB25 Kit? Just looking for some general feedback. We are going to 100 taps (on buckets) for next year and I don't want to have all day boils on the 2x4 divided pan. We were at 50 taps (on buckets) this past season and had about four hour boils. However, keeping in mind expansion, we may be up to 200+ taps in the next few years. The RB25 Kit is rated for 150+ taps. It costs $685 per the website.

Thanks

[fred]

they works great and the videos are spot on and very helpful. i have several kits in stock near cleveland.

[Z/MAN]

I have 100+ taps and last season I purchased a RB20. It cut my boiling time in better then half and the same with the wood supply. I also get longer draws with the higher concentrate sap. The RB20 does about 15 gallons an hour which stays ahead of my 12-13 gallon per hour boil rate. It takes 2% to 4%+ with one pass. Very simple to use and maintain. Great customer support with questions answered very quickly. I highly recommend it to anyone.

[DairyVet]

Can’t speak to that kit specifically but the RB10 I used last year was great. The owner of the company is very friendly and responsive via email with any questions you have before the sale and tech support after.

[steve J]

I bought the RB25 kit last winter. It was easy to assemble and they are great to deal with. Also I averaged 58 gph which was higher than they had stated. It double my sugar content on one pass and again on a second pass. I boil on a 2x4 supreme pan and tapped 110 trees. I could easily handle more taps.

[Biz]

I have two RB15’s. One has been used for 2 seasons, one for 3. I have run thousands of gallons through them and they are pretty bulletproof. I only do one pass most times, removes half the water. Last season they saved me over 50 hours of boiling time.

Dave

[buckeye gold]

I have 100+ taps and last season I purchased a RB20. It cut my boiling time in better then half and the same with the wood supply. I also get longer draws with the higher concentrate sap. The RB20 does about 15 gallons an hour which stays ahead of my 12-13 gallon per hour boil rate. It takes 2% to 4%+ with one pass. Very simple to use and maintain. Great customer support with questions answered very quickly. I highly recommend it to anyone.

What is your total time investment from starting the RO to shutdown. Let's use 100 gallons of sap as our number. At 13 GPH of raw sap that calculates out to 7.7 hrs. What is your total time investment FRom the moment you start the RO until you shutdown? don't you have to run at least an hr or two worth of sap through the RO before you can start boiling? That hour or two should add on to total time invested.

Just trying to understand the value of an RO for someone like me who has time to boil. I'm retired and I have all day to boil.

[wobbletop]

That hour or two should add on to total time invested.

Just trying to understand the value of an RO for someone like me who has time to boil. I'm retired and I have all day to boil.

The difference is the RO can be left unattended while it's doing it's thing. I sometimes have it run overnight so I can start boiling when I want in the morning.

[tombaisley]

If you have all day to boil, get an RO, tap more trees, make twice as much syrup. I have an rB25, I had 300ish taps and made just about 50 gallons of syrup on a Mason 2x4XL last seasn

[Z/MAN]

What is your total time investment from starting the RO to shutdown. Let's use 100 gallons of sap as our number. At 13 GPH of raw sap that calculates out to 7.7 hrs. What is your total time investment FRom the moment you start the RO until you shutdown? don't you have to run at least an hr or two worth of sap through the RO before you can start boiling? That hour or two should add on to total time invested.

Just trying to understand the value of an RO for someone like me who has time to boil. I'm retired and I have all day to boil.

Being a few months past the season I can't give an exact total time investment. You are right ,I do run the RO about an hour to get some concentrate to get started. I don't lose the whole hour though because I have one mainline running into my garage that will usually give me enough raw sap to start the RO and it will sit there doing it's job while I am out collecting the rest of the sap. I usually collect my sap in the late afternoon after the day long flow so I will usually boil in the evenings and the RO helps keep me from really late night boils. I'm also retired but 2 years ago we had some crazy flows and I spent 4 or 5 days in a row boiling 10-12 hours into the wee hours of the night. That was taking the fun out of it. I only have a 2x3 but I get a fantastic boil rate out of it because I run all cutoff 2x4s and 2x6s. I get all I want for free so I run it extremely hard. This extreme heat has caused me problems with things melting, warping and just plain wearing away. I have noticed that a lot of these problems are the result of really long boils at extreme temperatures so the RO helps me there with the much shorter boil times. Also take into consideration you will be using HALF the wood, that is a big savings of time and work right there. I always said I wouldn't use an RO but finally took a good look at the RO bucket and the fact that I have yet to hear one sugar maker say they were sorry they bought one. Most say they would never boil again without one. I highly recommend it.

[jrgagne99]

The RO Buckets are great units, no doubt about it. But if you plan to get up to 200 taps, you might want to think about a 4" single-post for faster processing time. Especially if you want to process the day's sap run on the same evening, which i think generally makes a lighter syrup. An RO that can remove 65-75% of the water while producing concentrate fast enough to keep up with your evaporator is needed for this. Having this capability greatly reduced the amount of time I spent processing sap, even relative to my previous homemade RO that I had to run overnight. It is nice to be able to walk into the sugarhouse, hook up the RO to the truck tank, wait five minutes to confirm outputs are good, then light the match and start boiling 8%.

[Aaron Stack]

Is the RB25 something I can grow into? Looking to add RO this coming season and return to 50 taps, but I really have my eye on expanding for the 2025 season with a bigger evaporator and more taps (100+!). It is rated bigger than I will need next year, but is that something I need to think about? Not having “enough” taps?

[DRoseum]

You can definitely scale (down and then back up) with that kit. Just change the number of membranes in series that you use. Get the biggest diaphragm pump they offer no matter what so you can add more membranes and scale up.

I have 2 RO units that are basically the same as the RB25 (with low pressure recirc loop) to support 100 taps on vacuum. I only use 1 most days to boil all the sap on each day (average 100 - 120 gallons per day). On bigger runs (180 - 200+ gallons) I run both in parallel to speed things up and process it all in the same day.

I agree with others, if you go north of 100 or 150 taps, and are on vacuum, you might want to consider a 4x40 single post unit.

I didn't go this route for various reasons but am ultimately still very happy with the smaller DIY ROs I have. I wanted scalability, portability, and insulated membranes in compact form since I didn't have a sugarhouse for years. My tap numbers slowly grew and half aren't guaranteed to be available to tap forever. Took an approach that met objective of same day processing, limited investment/cost and gave me flexibility/scalability. Weigh your options and ultimate plans.

[Aaron Stack]

Thanks D. Good to know the investment will be able to grow with me even if not using the full potential at the start.

Most of this season I was boiling same day and didn't use the tank until late - even ran out of sap 3 times before the trees really opened up. My evaporator does a good 8-10 an hour but wasn't able to keep up with those 50-90 gallon collection days.

[Vtmbz]

I have the ro20 on three hundred taps. It is essential for me. The support is excellent and its easy to use. In my setup it is maxed out.

Daily cleaning takes me about an 1.5 ,hours in the morning while i fire up the evaporator; warm water soap rinse for 45 minutes followed by filter change and 30 gallons permeate flush. I use a tds meter from Carl and flush until the outwash equals the permeate reading.

I have the pressure switch and a timer and run the ro at night when i have to, running the device for as long as needed to have enough concentrate to start up in the morning, about 25 gallons or so.

In operation, I get a doubling of sugar pct. My 2x4 will boil just a bit faster that the ro will produce on cold days, which is roughly 12-16 gallonsof concentrate per hr, depending upon the sap temperature. So the ro processes the same amount of raw sap as the evaporator at a fraction of the purchase cost. I never have time to recirculate, with 300 hundred trees! I usually make about four or five gallons of syrup in about 6 hours of boiling.

The big gain is that I can skip boiling slow days. The other change was that with concentrated sap, cleaning the flue and syrup pans is now a major part of the process.

The ro20 is perfect for 100 taps, especially if weekend boiling is the goal.

[littleTapper]

The ro20 is perfect for 100 taps, especially if weekend boiling is the goal.

Absolutely spot-on. I run ~95 taps with mine. The whole process now is so much easier. Lighter run days when weather says I should boil (warm), I just have it run right into the head tank and set it to match my boil rate. Otherwise, overnight concentrating to about 5-6% is the norm for me. What a great system.

Considering adding a membrane and swapping to 500gpd membranes though. :) I've got 4 seasons on the original membranes and they were still behaving perfectly at the end of this season...so I'm on the fence with the upgrade at the moment.