steamaway vs piggyback vs more RO membranes

[1metzger]

Hi everyone,
We are looking for some non salesman to give us some honest input on our situation. We have a 2x6 Ailger oil fired with a Lapierre 2 membrane RO. We have expanded to about 1500 taps, and last year this set up worked pretty well, didn't spend any late nights in the sugarhouse, like we did before the RO even with fewer taps. We are adding a vac this year, and will be adding some more taps in the coming years. So we are trying to figure out where is the best place to gain efficiency for the cost. We have considered going to a larger evap., but the problem with that comes when we have a small run. Last year, there were runs when we barely had enough sap to put through the RO and start boiling. Some say just don't concentrate as much, but that is not the cost effective payback we are looking for out of the RO. I know last year wasn't the greatest year, but there will be more of those, and I know the vac will pull more sap, which should give us enough sap on those small runs to boil. But when we get a large run, we will be spending a lot of hours in the sugarhouse if we don't improve efficiency.

We are thinking that making this set up work better, may be our best bet for now. Our question is, where is the money best spent?

We are trying to weigh the cost/benefits of adding membranes, or adding a piggyback or steamaway, or is there any other options out there? The piggyback ads say they make you 60% - 75% more efficient, but how does that translate in our situation. I have read posts that say efficiency is greatly lost on a smaller evap. like ours. And of course they are not cheap, but I guess there is no annual maintenance costs, but apparently we may not gain much either for our investment.

Any input would be appreciated.

[1metzger]

Just read my post and saw I put 2X6, instead Of 2X8 oil fired.
Thanks

[Jim Brown]

1metzger; We have a wood fired Waterloo/Small raised flue 2x6 with a Leader 2x4 steamaway on top. We can get give or take 50 gallons per hour with it set the way it is . We will be putting a Lapierre 150 RO ahead of it this year. we also have had the problem of late night boils!. And a couple of 60 hour marathons.We will have at or nearly at 1000 taps on vac this season so we will have a lot better numbers starting next week as the weather is supposed to get more like sugar season here.
Check out our pic on the attached link

Jim

[DS Maple]

We have a 3'x8' Steam-Away on a 3'x12' wood fired evaporator and I must admit that it works great. There is no question that we get the full 75% increase in efficiency out of it, as it brings the boiling rate of the 3'x12' to around 175 gallons per hour. On the other hand, we have not yet seen the sap temperature rise quite to the 200 degree mark as advertised. When the fire is burning really hot it will peak at about 190 degrees. Last year we ran about 1600 taps on it, but in past years it has seen upwards of 2200. We can also start the evaporator for volumes of sap as low as 100 gallons if we feel it is necessary. (In part this is because we boil until the main storage tanks are empty, still leaving the tank that feeds the evaporator about half full. This might be around 30 or 40 gallons.)
In your case I would see a Steam-Away as a good investment becuase you would be able to boil more sap with the same amount of oil. I would think that it would pay off based on that alone.
In terms of the Piggyback, I honestly don't know that much about it. I think that somehow it is slightly different from the Steam-Away and from what I've heard people have had better luck with the Steam-Away. Again though, I don't know specifically why.
I hope this helps with your decision.

[maplwrks]

You and I are in the same boat basically. I am near to putting on another 1500 taps on my 2.5x8, which will put us near 55oo taps. If I were to spend another $5500.00, it would be in another membrane. Steam-aways and Piggybacks are good quality pieces of equipment, but teamed up with an RO, you will spend hours a day cleaning them. They get a tremendous amount of scale buildup in them. You will get more effiency out of a new membrane. I would try to find ways to get more work out of my RO. What % concentrate are you going to? The difference between 8% and 12% concentrate is huge! This will also cut your fuel bill down. I have been able to get my fuel to syrup ratio down to 1/3 gal oil to 1 gal syrup. Feel free to pm me if you would like to here more.

[jdj]

We have a 3x10 woofired evaporator and last year we added a steamaway(3x6). We couldn't be more pleased. Efficiency has increased to the 75% as advertised, burnt a heck of alot less wood and we get more hot water than anyone could ever use, which is handy for cleaning up. As far as maintanence goes with the steamaway, ther is very little. We did take a day last year about half way through the season and cleaned the entire evaporator and steamaway then cleaned everything again at the end of the season, that was it. I have never used a steamaway along with an RO but I don't think you would be disappointed if you invested in a steamaway. I have no experience with a piggyback so can't really tell you anything about them.

[maplwrks]

If I were boiling raw sap, I would probably go with a Steam-away. Most of the guys up here in Vt. that have RO and Steamaway have extensive wash set ups to acid wash their steamaways each day. The problem with RO and Steamaways is that the air holes in the Steamaway plug with nitre. Another way to improve the perfomance of your rig is to add air injection. I don't know true #s, but I bet it will increase efficiency by 30%.
I know that it seems like I really don't like Steamaways, but that the fact is you can get much more efficiency out of an RO.

[802maple]

I agree with Mike as a steam away or a piggy back are great machines, but they only work when you do. As a former salesman of both I prefer the piggyback as they get better performance, but that is why they make Chevies and Fords so that everybody has one they like.

[maplecrest]

i have used a steamaway for 8 seasons now 3 of them with the r/o. for the price of a steamaway buy an r/o. the good thing about both is the oil savings. as to keep a steamaway clean , i would fill it with hot water every nite and leave to soak and drain and rinse before boiling next day.

[DS Maple]

As I mentioned before I think that the Steam-Away system is certainly the way to go, particulary after some of the things that I have heard about R/O. Now I can't imagine that anyone who owns an R/O will admit to these claims being true, but according to my friend who I consider to be an "expert" maple person, the use of R/O results in flavor loss and it also changes the molecular structure of the syrup.
While I don't have much knowledge on the molecular structure bit, the science behind the flavor claim actually makes perfect sense. Maple flavor comes from the cooking of the maple sugar in the sap. Grade B is more flavorful than Grade A because it is cooked longer due to a lower sugar content. The use of R/O can result in syrup that looks like dark amber but tastes like medium or light amber. Think of it this way, if 3/4 of the water is removed by way of an R/O (in an ideal situation,) it will only have to boil for 1/4 of the time it normally would. I personally don't believe that this is how great syrup is made. The person who told me this claimed to be able to taste the use of R/O in any syrup that was made with it.
Steam-Aways and Piggybacks don't alter the boiling time, but are instead just a way to reclaim the lost heat from the flue pan. Given the fact that the heat is being generated in some way, whether it is wood or oil, I would jump at the opportunity to use as much of it as possible.
And just to make things clear, I'm not a salesman for these things, I just happen to really like them.

[1metzger]

Thanks for all the good info. It sounds like a steamaway or piggyback used with an RO is a lot of extra cleaning work, so maybe, considering the sizable investment on top of that, we will look another direction.

We have not been able to taste any difference in the syrup with the RO, and I guess my argument to that would be that I probably won't be selling my syrup to anyone who can either, and since my time and money comes into play when making syrup to sell, I need to be as cost and time efficient as possible, while still making a good marketable product.

maplwrks, Can you tell me what does air injection mean? And are you using oil on that 2.5X8, and how many membranes do you use, and do you spend a lot of late nights with 5500 taps on that?

Thanks

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Mike is running the sap to 22%, so he is drawing off 15 to 20 gallons of syrup per hour, not to shabby with a 2.5 x 8.

[1metzger]

I just read your profile maplwrks so I got my answer to the questions on your set up, but still wondering how many hours you have to boil, even at 22% on a good run. If you can make a 2 1/2 X8 work for 5500 taps, that is very encouraging. Do you have vac.? DIdn't see that on your profile.
Thanks again

[802maple]

I have boiled in about every conceivable manner there is and true when you concentrate to 24 percent you do loose a little of the flavor, so I only recommend that to the bulk producers out there. Companies like Maple Grove love it as they blend all of there syrup anyway. I will put up syrup made with 14% sap against against any syrup out there, I have heard this argument from non r.o. owners forever, but the proof is in the blue ribbons on the wall. And as long as I can make syrup that my customer loves for less than a quart of oil per gallon of syrup, it doesn't take a business degree to figure what I will do. Still all and all if I had to choose between a pig and a steamaway it would still be the pig.

[super sappy]

What are the basic differances between the 2 (piggy back & Steamaway)How do these compare to the Maple pro steam pan?I thought they were the same thing. Is one easyier to clean than the other? Is one less money than the other?-Im confused again-ss

[802maple]

The piggy back and the steamaway work on the same principal.

The difference is that all of the sap that runs a evaporator with a steam away goes thru the unit and into the flue pan and no raw sap goes into the main evaporator at all. So on a fast boiling evaporator the efficiency goes down as it passes thru the steam away as to not allow for as good evaporation.

On a piggyback the sap goes thru the piggyback and into the front pan with raw sap being fed to the fluepan. Now some people have there's set up so they are feeding the flue pan but they don't get as good evaporation that way and aren't ment to operate that way. There is a valve on the piggyback that feeds the front pan at 200 degrees, basically a trickle and the flue pan makes up the difference. This allows the sap to go thru slower and have better effiency with a larger amount of evaporation. Again I will say that either one will do its job, I just prefer the pig.

The one thing that comes to mind with the steam away is that some day there will be a test with heavy metals and I don't know where that will leave the steamaway with all of its copper. The pig is totally made out of stainless.
I haven't seen the Maple Pro model, I believe you are talking about Dallaires version sold by Maple pro.

[New Hope Mapleman]

Can you tell me more about your Pig. I have a 4' on my 4x14 Leader Enhanced. Its an old Small Bro version and I have a couple issues with it. Never heard of runnin it into the front pan. Mine has copper air tubes -the thing I don't like is there is almost no flow pattern and its terrible to clean. The back of the flues only have grooves to allow sap to flow into the back cross section. You can't get everything out wthout turning the thing over. Maybe if I knew how this thing was supposed to work I'd like it more! Right now all I can say good for it is its alot less than a steamaway.

Thanks for the info!
Dan

[sapman]

I know that Leader is working on switching to stainless pipes in the Steamaway, hopefully available within a couple years or less.

Tim

[Maple Restoration]

Hi Tim just to let you know that Leader has made the switch to 100% stainless the chap down the road just had one delivered last week it is a 4’ by 5’ steamaway, he currently averages 220 gph running on a oil fired steam boiler so we are very interested to see how much it will save him in oil.

[Homestead Maple]

I wonder what Leader did to get the same efficency out of stainless tubes in the heat exchanger versus copper? I bought a Steam-Away a few years back for my 3x8 and at the time, Randy at Leader, told me that they had experimented with stainless tubes in the heat exchanger but lost a lot of efficency so they were going to build mine with the copper tubes, which I was glad of because I was was looking for all the gain I could get. I would have gone with copper pans if they were available. I know Leader dropped the idea of using stainless tubes. A few years after I bought my Steam-Away, Leader eventually built what they call an enhanced Steamaway and they added more copper tubes to the heat exchanger. Kind of like a second generation Steam-Away. Maybe the Steam-Away Leader is building now aren't as efficient as the earlier models. My evaporation rate on my 3x8 evaporator went from 85-88 gals. an hour to 143-148 using the Steam-Away, depending on the conditions. I have a one inch water meter on my feed line so I can record the flow per hour. Of course the first hour isn't indicitive because things have to reachfull operating conditions.

[Brent]

I wonder what Leader did to get the same efficency out of stainless tubes in the heat exchanger versus copper?

Longer tubes and thinner walls ?????