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I am playing with the idea of getting an ro I'm running 200 taps on a 2x6 evaporator and I'd like to go to 500. Looking for what would be the best RO for the amount of taps I have and the best priced also how big of a tank will I need for back washing and all that fun stuff
I have a set-up close to what you are planning. Last year I had 450 taps with a 2-4X40 membrane RO and 2X6 evaporator. Good days were 600-800 gallons of sap. I would collect sap and run the RO for 3-5 hours per day and re-circulate to get a 10% concentrate. I would then boil for 2-3 hours per day. I could get the job done in 6-8 hours per day (with my day job this was good).
The manufacturers say that with a 4X40 membrane you should have at least 100 gallons of sap (per membrane) to backwash. With pre-rinsing, you would want a bit more. I had 2-275 gallon totes to hold the permeate water for cleaning the RO. That was more than adequate.
Keith
We are in the same situation as you are planning and WVKeith. Last year we had 580 taps, of these, 250 were on Shurflo pumps. We are running a Deer Run Maple 250 RO and a 2X6 evaporator. We have had days when we collected 900 gallons, but the average is usually 700. We use a 275 gallon tote for permeate for backwashing and that has been more than adequate. We make all our collections at the end of the day and process the sap first thing next morning. On an average collection day, we start processing through the RO at 8AM in the morning and by 2PM we have bottled the syrup and cleaned up all the equipment and are ready for the next run.
Gary
I did the same thing last year. I ran 500 taps on high vac. I have a 2x6 evaporator and a steamaway and I went with an MES dolly 300 ro, 3-4x40 membranes. I would start to process around 4pm, I would usually have to haul 2 loads of sap. I would start the RO and just recirculate the sap back to the raw sap tank. I did this for about 2 hours which brought the whole tank up to 5-6% typically. Then I would send the concentrate to the head tank, at around 8-10%. I would then start the evaporator, usually boiled for about 2 hours or less. The biggest days I had over 1000 gallons of sap and spent 4 hours boiling each of those days. I have a 275 gallon tote tank that I used this year for washing and rinsing, 2 tanks would be better.