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danno
03-07-2010, 12:41 AM
Does concentrate foam more than raw sap?

Boiled my first concentrate today (yeaaaa!). Once I got the defoamer going every time I fired I was fine, but before that I have never seen the sap want to jump out of the pan so bad, and I was not firing that hard.
tuckermtn
03-07-2010, 06:39 AM
I had the same situation last night with the defoamer as we were also running concentrate for the first time...

any RO pros weigh in on this?
Russell Lampron
03-07-2010, 06:41 AM
It all depends on the sap. I burned the back of my hand last night trying to get the congealed defoamer to come out of the bottle while my back pan was foaming over. I didn't have to add anymore for the rest of the boil. So far here foam hasn't been a problem and I have been concentrating to the mid teens.
KenWP
03-07-2010, 09:23 AM
Learnt the hard way last year to keep the defoamer bottle warm. Sure dosn't take much of it.
danno
03-07-2010, 10:33 AM
Russ, just curious, what's your concentrate flow rate and pressure level to get up to mid teens? I don't think that's even possible on my membranes.
danno
03-08-2010, 12:23 AM
Wow - guess I'm going to have to re-learn how to fire my evaporator. Completely different boiling condensate instead of raw sap. I was a bit slow using defoamer yesterday and there was none in the syrup pan.

Tonight the syrup pan was bubbling right up to the top of the dividers (and higher), even with both doors wide open. The draw was very consistent, but I could barely boil the flue pan due to the raging syrup pan so evap rate was lousy.

Hoping that when the defoamed sap from the flue pan makes its way to the syrup pan, I can speed things up.
Russell Lampron
03-08-2010, 05:15 AM
Danno I recirculate my sap back to bulk storage tank and start about 4 hours before I boil. I run my RO with the concentrate and permeate flows about equal and set the pressure at 250. With the NF270 membrane that I just got I can close my high pressure valve and get 3.5gpm on both sides at just under 250psi. After a couple of hours I am overflowing my 325 gal permeate tank and have big puddles in the yard. The sap in the Bulk tank is usually reading in the teens at that point.