ro question

[PATheron]

I have a 600 gal per hour ro. My question is this. Can I buy membranes enough and add a high pressure pump and make 25% sap come out the evaperator end of that ro at 90 gallons per hour? If so what do I need to buy? Thee(bigsapzar)roon

[brookledge]

My understanding is that no matter how many times you run it through it will not go any higher than 23 and maybe 24. So I don't think you will be able to get 25 percent.
Keith

[PATheron]

Keith- The 23 or 24 would be fine. I just want to know what I would need to get the highest concentration possable with a single pass through multiple memranes at 90 gph. Theron

[fred]

be careful what you wish for. too highof consentrate will cause a lack of good flavor especially in light

[PATheron]

What im wondering about is how high I can get it without recirculating. Just a one pass deal right to the high concentrate. I know the performance will start to decline but seems like if you put enough of the membranes together you could do it. Whats it going to take Governor? Theron

[ennismaple]

be careful what you wish for. too highof consentrate will cause a lack of good flavor especially in light

And you'll burn out a lot of pumps!

[maplecrest]

you can add a 7.5 high pressure pump and a membrane about 12000 dollars or less. and get 20 percent with one pass and make sugar water out of your evap.might as well add air injection and make a light tasteless product

[maplwrks]

Theron,
I Think You May Be Better Off Adding Just 1 Membrane And Recirculating Your Concentrate A Little. It Really Doesn't Take That Long To Bump It To 20%+. For The Money Jeff Was Talking You Might Be Better Off Trading Your 600 For A 1200 Or An 1800 Gph Machine. There Is A True Technique To Getting High Concentrate Without Pounding The Sap Through It At Extremely High Pressure. I Boiled 27% And 30% Concentrate A Couple Of Times This Past Season And Saw No Ill Effects In My Machine. I Almost Never Let My Machine Get Above 400 Psi. Lapierre Has Tested My 4 Year Old Membranes And They Always Come Back 100%. I'm Sorry I Took Off On The High Concentrate Thing---i Don't Think You Could Get That High Concentration In 1 Pass, At Least I Don't Think It's Feasible!

[maplecrest]

mike is right, i up graded my 600 and would have been better off tradeing for a new one due to little problems

[wilson maple]

Sounds to me like your trying to burn up your evaporator with all that high concentrate. I have enough trouble trying to keep enough sap in my pans without putting concentrate in them. I have a woodfired 3x12 G.H.Grimm and have an evaperation rate pushing 200gph. thats with no ro or steam pans just good old fashion boiling.

[802maple]

If you are just making bulk syrup, it is the only way to fly. Believe it or not it is much easier to boil 22 -25 percent sap than 2 percent as you never run into the problems that you have with raw sap.

[Jeff E]

What kind of problems, 802?

I have been told that the pans really can get sanded up when boiling such high concentrations. Having to clean a flue pan repeatedly during a season is something to avoid...

[OGDENS SUGAR BUSH]

JEFF
towards the end of last season i was reversing sides every 4 hours and cleanning the pan at the end of the day. and that was with raw sap. some times the sugar sand is really bad

RICH

[maplwrks]

The problems that Jerry is referring to have to do with syrup in the 2nd and 3rd divider, and no syrup on the draw off side. This happens with many, if not all reverse flow evaporators. Many folks have problems with this, and scoop like hell to get the syrup to flowout the drawoff. I have a scoop and a skimmer, they look great on the wall as ornaments.
I concentrate to 17%+ on my rig---I'll be the first to tell you, I thought the same as most of you on this site think---CRAZY SOB IS GOING TO BURN UP HIS RIG!!! I just wasn't accustomed to boiling anything more than 8% sap. Let me go on record as saying, 20% sap is much easier to boil than raw sap. The reason for this is simple--the sap never sits idle. There is a constant flow in, and out, of the evaporator. I cannot, however say that any evaporator will handle 20% sap. I would think long and hard before trying it with a reverse flow rig. I have cross flow pans and it works like a dream. I know of another producer that uses a Revolution pan without much problem also.
As for the subject of niter, I drain and clean my flue pan every other boil. This cleaning consists of spraying the pan out with water. I do not use any acid until after the season. The syrup pan gets changed every boil. All liquid gets drained from the syrup pans every boil and run through the filter press before going back into the rig.
High concentrate sap is not for everyone---and I'm not here to tell you all to try it, I'm just trying to explain it to try to clear up some of the misconceptions surrounding it!!!

[PATheron]

Mike- Im going to have to do exactly what your saying just to keep up this year with what I did in the woods. We might have to have a conference here and there. I had an awefull session with sand last year. This year I did buy a third pan though. Crossflow rig. How exacly are you doing your pressing once its off the rig? Im concerned about that with possable 4000 gallon run days. Thats a hundred gallons of syrup an evening to do something with. Theron

[802maple]

I was referring to what Mike is talking about. Sap that is high concentrated works so smooth that you would not believe it. I remember it took a lot of convincing for Mike to want to go to high concentrate, but I finally got him hooked
Also not meaning any disrespect to anyone, yes we did have a build up of nitre on the pans and yes we did have to clean up a couple times a year, but considering we made more syrup in a evening then most sugarmakers would make in a season I didn't think that was a problem at all. On average we would make 130 gallons an hour and at the end of a 3-4 hour night that was a lot of syrup.

Theron, you won't have a problem with filtering your syrup if you do it as I told you this summer when I was there. Just give your first drawoff a good dose of filter aid and you will be good to go. The whole key to filtering is getting a good brick of filter aid early in the process. If hot water is available I like to mix my filter aid in that before I start making syrup and running it thru the press to form a good clean filter block before I start. It will make them last a longer amount of time

[PATheron]

Jerry- I know what your saying about that. I got real good at that last year after you guys got me straightened out. Only thing Im wondering is dad and I had a good process where he took off a bucket of syrup and I took it over to the stove and finetuned density and pressed it into the drum. Usually thinned it a little bit. I was wondering if Mike was pressing right off the evaperator somehow from that container directly. Thats how Richard does it. My way works real good I just wonder if Im taking too many steps for that kind of volume. Theron

[802maple]

Yes, Mike does take it right off the evaporator. I think he has about a 20 gallon tank that he draws off into if I remember right. As time goes by you will get real confident in being able to do that.
I used to have a 40 gallon drawoff tank that I sat right under the valve and when it was about a third full I would start the press and itwouldn't shut off much the rest of the night.
I would start my first draw and check with a hydrometer and compare to the dial thermometer on the evaporator. I would then keep adjusting the drawoff valve to keep it at whatever temperature the syrup was coming off that day. I would then periodically check what was in the drawoff tank to see if it was doing okay. Remember you don't have to be dead nuts on for bulk buyers. It can vary some as long as it isn't far off, say a point on the hydrometer.

[maplwrks]

Theron--I worked for 8 years with some fellas that made a career out of handling syrup in the sugarhouse. I was making 150 - 200 gallons of syrup a day and carried it all in 3 gallon pails. They were of the school, that you didn't need to work smart, just work!! I would get close to syrup, draw it off, dump it into a 2x6 finisher, and cook the snot out of it getting it to grade. It was at this time that I started touring other sugarhouses on our "off" days. I noticed that nobody had finishing rigs in their sugarhouses. After watching them boil for a while, I realized that these guys weren't busting their butts at all. They all draw into a tank of some type, ranging in size from 5 gallon to 40 gallon. All of these tanks were hooked directly into a filter press. The operators would all draw off at syrup, checking with a hydrometer to get it close as possible. Many of them would,(I also do this) drop the hydrometer into the tank of syrup to check the density. If it was good, they would kick on the press, and send it right into a barrel. I like to handle it once, that is when I load it into my truck!!! I think the sooner that you and Dad get accustomed to doing it this way, the less tired you will feel at the end of a boil. Remember while your press is filtering that syrup into a barrel, that frees you up to fire the rig, drink a beer.....etc

[802maple]

Also at Mikes you can't afford to be carrying hot syrup around with all the stumbling going on if you know what I mean and with one hand carrying a boiling soda, you would hate to spill that beer on somebody. hehehe

[maple sapper]

as I was told by a ole timer when I first started doing sugaring "it takes a lot of beer to make syrup"

[PATheron]

You guys talked me into it. Im going to have to rig up the same deal. Ill get my stuff all perfect in the woods and then instead of going after more Ill finetune in the sugarhouse so its easier. Its still killing me though. I need to put blower on the rig too. Theron

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I have a skimmer because it came with my evaporator when I bought it several years ago but it doesn't get used. My sap usually averages around 1.7 to 1.8 percent and I usually don't have any problems with making syrup in the center sections on my front pan which is a 2x3 four section pan. Guess maybe it is a bigger problem with larger evaporators. I can't possibly have my firebox much hotter as my stack temps stay around 1650 most of the time, so there is a lot of heat under the syrup pan.

[maplwrks]

Most of the equipment manufacturers make a nice filter press tank. The tank I have is a Leader, with a cone shaped bottom. I made my first drawoff tank out of an old milking dump station tank that I made a 2x4 and plywood frame for. It had a 1/2" nipple on the bottom that I hooked the 5/8" milking hose to that fed the press. You should get one large enough to hold all of the syrup in your front pans, so that you can drain them to clean and change pans. I change my pans after I finish boiling, while the liquid is hot. I drain all of the hot sap/ syrup into the tank. Once the pan is changed or cleaned, kick on the press and pump the filtered liquid back into the clean pans---ready to go on the next boil.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Leader makes a really nice 39 gallon tank that is round bottom like a feed tank that has a drain on one end and the syrup drains towards that valve. It would not be difficult to add casters to it or build a cart for it to wheel around on and it is a lot cheaper than some of the big tanks with wheels on them.

[maplwrks]

Like Brandon said--Leader actually makes 2 round bottom filter press tanks. They caught my eye at Leaders open house this past spring. The smaller one(13 gallon)would be just the ticket for you Theron. I like Brandons idea of putting wheels on it, which would make it very easy to move around the sugarhouse.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Mike,

I thought the 39 would be better for him at the rate he is adding taps. It was only a few bucks more and better to have the extra capacity in the event you have to draw for a while and can't start up the press. One of these days when he has 5,000 taps and is making 50 gallon of syrup per hour, it might save him in investing in a new tank.

Either way, it looks like a nice tank and the 39 gallon is a good price.

Build a wooden frame and put the castors on the wooden frame. It would be quick and easy and if in the future you want to build a nicer frame to bolt it too, then you would only have a few bucks in the wooden one. I built one for my Leader 16x24 Canner/finisher out of just 4 pieces of 2x4, two pieces running each way.

[802maple]

Theron
You won't have to do much with your evaporator. As I remember you said that you were boiling at a rate of about 90 gallons an hour. with 20% sap it will only take a little more than 4 gallons to make a gallon of syrup so you will be with just those numbers making 25 gallons an hour, but you will also be pushing more sap an hour due to the fact that you are drawing off about 17 gallons an hour more so you can add that to your evaporation rate in a sense so you should be making about 30 gallons an hour. and that is if you stop at 20 percent.

[maplwrks]

Theron---Let us know if you need a little on-the-job-training. Bean and I could make a house call!!

[PATheron]

Mike and Jerry- Im going to whatever percent I can get. Higher the better. I think Ive got some good ideas from you guys. Ill build a deal so I can press as soon as it comes off the evap. I think Im going to put that blower on the evap too so thatll help me boil faster. Ill probly recirculate it as a policy as long as practical and Im not going to be real scientific about exact percents. Ill just do it as long as I can and as long as its pretty high Ill go for it. The faster it goes in a barrell the better. Theron

[802maple]

Theron If you are early enough so that it doesn't effect Mike and his sugaring we will come down with a few more barrels for you to fill, how about that, it would be fun I think.

[PATheron]

That sounds real good to me. You guys just cant pick on my stuff. Ill have everything ready to rock and roll. Theron

[maplwrks]

Theron---Why would we want to pick on your stuff?? From the pictures I've seen, it looks pretty nice to me!! Not saying you might not get razzed a bit--thats normal for us Vermonters!!

[PATheron]

You guys probly better come down and make me quit stringing tube. Im out of control. Ill have freeze up days in Feb and Ill probly still be putting taps out. Theron

[802maple]

Theron, I heard what you are doing is showing up from outer space. They seem to be saying that there is a glow in Roseville.

[markcasper]

Regarding my RO I bought.........I notice the intake for sap and permeate are 1 1/2 inches. Does that need to be that same size all the way to the sap and permeate tanks, or can I go smaller, say 1'' inside diameter flexible milk hose?

The tanks are outside and I want something other than PVC coming through the wall so I can pull them back inside during freezing periods. I notice the concentrate line and permeate line are pretty tiny, that being the outflow from the ro. Those two small lines do not eaqual the capacity of 1 1/2" intake. HELP!

[sapman]

Mark,

My 500 also has 1.5" feed line. While you need to maintain that for the feed to keep the feed pump happy, 1" should be fine for the con. and perm. This is fine on mine, anyway, where I actually ran 3/4" for the conc. and 1" perm.

Tim

[tiggy-at-mac.com]

We experimented with our 600 gph RO last year (our first year with it). We think we could taste a difference when we went above 12 or 15 percent. We got that high with recirculation, which heated up the sap, incidentally. After a couple weeks of pushing it to 10-12 percent, our membrane really got shot. It was a used one, though. Have a new one for this year, and it'll be interesting to see what happens when we start playing.

Remember that just adding high pressure on one side of things (like the pump) doesn't mean that your system's other components are ready to take it. We're already talking about some pretty serious pressures. Hope you got your helmet :)

-tig

[802maple]

I am guessing that you have a R.O without recirculation pumps, possibly a Springtech. We went as high as 24 percent and with the proper cleaning procedures all 6 of our membranes were still at 100% or better production after 7 years. There is a lighter flavor no doubt, but the packers like it very much.


We experimented with our 600 gph RO last year (our first year with it). We think we could taste a difference when we went above 12 or 15 percent. We got that high with recirculation, which heated up the sap, incidentally. After a couple weeks of pushing it to 10-12 percent, our membrane really got shot. It was a used one, though. Have a new one for this year, and it'll be interesting to see what happens when we start playing.

Remember that just adding high pressure on one side of things (like the pump) doesn't mean that your system's other components are ready to take it. We're already talking about some pretty serious pressures. Hope you got your helmet :)

-tig