How long can you keep permeate

[Maplewalnut]

I am planning on using a 600 gallon tank for sap storage and 400 gallon for permeate storage or should it be the other way? One question I have is how long can you keep permeate? In other words can you accumualte permeate through the big runs and not use it all daily so you can have extra to still rinse after small runs? Maybe I should use the 600 for permeate?

What do you guys rinse with early in the season when you are concentrating small runs if you don't have enough permeate volume?

Thanks
Mike

[maplecrest]

mike as a pointed out to you during your visit. i would use the 600 for permeate and the 400 for a header tank. figure out how much you evaporator eats for sap per hour and start boiling. i know that mine eats 425 per hour so if i had 800 gallons and r/o is running making 300 gallons of consentrate per hour to start boiling and i can stay ahead of the r/o/ and boil for 4 hours or more.you do not have to wait till your con. tank is full to boil. think about 2 hours ahead and start boiling. then think in terms of 300 gallons per membrane to rinse after a wash. can use less. when i am not con. i am rinsing. sometimes i do not pay attention to the amount i am using and rinse too long and get it back in the next batch i run thru.at the end of the day i have to pay attention to the tank to make sure i have at least 900 gallons to rinse the soap out after a wash.there are big producers out there that use 400 gallon tanks as there header tank. one reason is having to shut down to change pans. let r/o catch up and boil again. you can not have enough permeate water.i hate to see my tank run over. i am filling a 400 and a 1500. the 1500 to rinse and wash and the 400 for when i get caught short

[Maplewalnut]

Jeff- I have a four tank system now. 400 gallons in the woods, 400 gallons at the sugarhouse, 600 gallons at the sugarhouse and a 125 gallon evaporator feed tank. Probably not the most efficient but I pump from the woods tank into the 400 and 600 holding tanks and finally from the holding tanks to the evaporator feed tank. I am worried about losing sap storage if I use the 600 for permeate especially on the high flow days when I don't get home until 5pm or so.

[maplecrest]

ok i did not figure in the 125. so you look at the 400 woods tank and the 400 sh tank there is 800. leaving the 600 as a back up. if the r/o is rinsed after a wash. you have the 800 full. would have to start r/o with the back up 600 with sap comming into it dumping the permeate down the drain.while running some of the 400 tank in r/o at same time, to get it low enough to put incomming sap in 400. then start to save the permeate in 600. with that much sap you can dump water. my tank runs more on ground than i save.if you think 3 to 1. three parts permeate to one part consentrate. so 600 gallons of sap would be 200 gallons consentrate and 400 gallons permeate.that would take your r/o 2.4 hours at 40 degree sap. longer with 32 degree sap.so you would have plenty of water to rinse and later wash and rinse. you have plenty of storage for now you just have to be creative in the way you plumb it. timing is the key. back before r/o,s when sap started to run i would start boiling and boil till it stopped running. we had many a 48 hour boil to stay ahead of the sap from running the tanks over. and now i have a 2500 feed tank for the r/o with 9400 taps. so i have to stay ahead of the incomming sap. i have another 2500 back up but try not to use it.

[ennismaple]

I agree - you don't need as much storage for concentrate as you do for sap and permeate. I've got 1600 gallons of sap storage in the camp, a 500 gallon tank for permeate and a 300 gallon tank to feed concentrate to the evaporator. I let the feed tank get half full with concentrate, fire up and by the time I'm at full boil the feed tank is close to full. This gives me some time if the RO acts up or I need to run some permeate through to do a short rinse during concentration.

If anything I'd like to have a larger permeate tank. The raw sap and concentrate tanks are fine for our 4,000 tap operation as there is a lot more storage in other tanks in the bush.

[802maple]

You don't need much storage at all as far as a head tank. We had a 75 gallon tank that fed our 5x14. When we switched the RO to the feed tank we would fire up the evaporator, set ro at about a half gallon per minute faster than the evaporator and that would take care of it. There wouldn't be anymore then 30-40 gallons in that tank at any given time. When the RO would shut off we were done. We had 2- 4500 gallon tanks for approximately 13000 taps of ours and and about 4000 that we bought from. You should be fine. Remember if you didn't get in seroius trouble before at around 35 to 40 gallons of evaporation per hour, it will be a cakewalk getting rid of 250 gallons per hour.

Good luck

[Maplewalnut]

Alright I get it. Its all timing! I'm still thinking pre-RO processing and I needed a hell of alot of sap storage when your only cooking 40gph.

600 tank for permeate, that will leave me 800 gallons of sap storage and evaporator feed tank stays where it is.

Thanks guys

[markcasper]

I think what Mikes question was, does permeate go out of condition? He was asking for a shelf life. Since its seperated water, I would think it would last indefinately if you keep the tank sealed and clean.

Garth told me not to leave the mambrane sit at the end of the season for any longer than 2 weeks max. Then you'd have to run permeate through again.

It was getting close to sitting idle for 2 weeks a week and a half ago. I had 3 sap tanks that were cleaned after the last run and I saved ALL of the permeate, so I did another wash last weekend, followed by rinse and then was able to finally remove the membrane for storage on Monday.


BTW,,,, who on here said to tip the column upside down for off season storage? And what was the reason?

Another BTW,,,,does it make any difference whether the membrane is stored up or down?

[802maple]

I was the one that said to tip them over, especially if you have the older style columns as water or sap sometimes gets thru the seal and goes to the bearing in the motor and it just sits there if it is rightside up. This allows it to drain and will not as likely rust the bearing.

[maplecrest]

jerry even tip the new ones over?

[tuckermtn]

mike- we have an 800gal for sap storage before the RO, a 500 gal for perm. and a 120 gal for a feed tank for the evap. has been a good combination- only had more than 800 gals once this year on the 625 taps we ran.

jerry- when you speak of colums, is that what I've been calling a membrane housing? I have an older memtek that has one 8" and one 4"- both have unions on the end caps that that lead to the re-circ pump- but the pump is 12-20" away from the end cap unions- should I be storing them upside down?

[sapman]

This year, I was tired of messing around with "musical" tanks and dumping permeate on the ground, so for my 5-600gph RO, I got a 1550 gal tank for perm. storage. Also needed more than the 1700 gal storage I have for raw sap. But my 240 concentrate tank never made it to half full. I recirc., then feed the tank/evap. and it goes smoothly.

[802maple]

Jeff, you don't have to tip the new ones over as they are submerged anyway, although it wouldn't hurt as this is a way knowing everything is out.

The older CDL machines and Lapierre units with the external motor on the bottom of the column though, are a good idea to turn them over as it does save on the bearings in the off season.

As far as the memteks it isn't necessary as you will not gain anything by it if they are in the fiberglass tubes with a seperate pump

[jdj]

I have a Springhtech Elite 1000. My RO room is going to be heated. I have done all closing procedures that came in my manual, including running a wash with membrane preservative. What should I do now? Can I leave the membranes on the machine with the preservative solution in them since the room will be heated? Also can the pumps still have liquid in them? It looks as if I were to drain the high pressure pump it would also drain the membranes? As you can tell I am lost, please help! Thanks.

[Russell Lampron]

You can keep permeate in storage as long as you want as long as you didn't have any sugar passage. If you passed sugar it will sour just like sap.

[markcasper]

Correct me if i am wrong, but I don't think you supposed to wash your membrane with membrane preservative, just soap. It says in my cdl manual not to run preservative through the turbine pump, it will break the turbine it says.

Maybe it different with other machines?

[jdj]

The springtech's(airablo) manual's annual closing procedures specifically state to fill wash basin with 10 gal of permeate, add one teaspoon of membrane preservative per membrane and set machine on wash cylcle for 20 minutes. I guess each machine is a bit different?????