RO bucket

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Originally Posted by GramaCindy

Just an FYI Person25, I'm under the impression that the concentrate spoils much more rapidly that un RO'ed sap

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Thanks for the tip! I’ll pay special attention to it. I’ve never had issues in the past but this RO presents another opportunity to learn a new process. I’m hopeful I’ll be ok, I’m able to store my sap and concentrate barrels in refrigeration. I’ve processed about 200 gal of raw sap through the ro since last Sunday. Currently boiling, it all off now. Amazed at the light color of syrup being drawn off. I’m amazed that I am drawing 1gal of finished syrup every two hours.

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Originally Posted by maple flats

Freezing the concentrate will keep it from spoiling, but it will take quite a while to thaw. Yes, concentrate spoils much faster than sap, because you have not only concentrated the sugar but also the micro-organisms.
Proctor maple research had an article in the Maple News, I believe about how they hold concentrate for a few days, They concentrate to about 35% sugar (for more than any regular RO can get) and they refrigerate a bulk tank to I believe 26 degrees, just short of freezing. They then boil it a day or 2 later.

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I LOVE the Maple news!

I will add an enthusiastic recommendation for the RO bucket and RO in general. I'm very much a small time operation, 40 taps all on buckets, boiling on a turkey fryer. Last year it was taking me an average of 10-12 hours to boil down the 30-35 gallons of sap I was collecting before boiling. That's a lot of time and money - propane ain't cheap - for a quart of syrup.

This year I added the RO20. I'm still getting about 35 gallons of sap. But the difference in time and money is huge. It takes about 20 minutes to run a 5 gallon pail from 2 percent up to 7-8 percent. So in less than three hours I can turn those 35 gallons of sap into 4.5 gallons of concentrate that take only 2 hours to finish.

So I've cut my work time in half and I'm using 1/5 of the amount of propane. That's a huge savings all around.

I'm sure the savings scale up with your operation.

So I got an RO bucket as well (RB10). Looking forward to its benefits! Do I need to rinse anything or clean anything before I start processing sap?

Run 10 gallons of non chlorinated water through it to saturate the membranes.


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If you only have city (treated) water, use an activated carbon filter in place of the 5 micron water filter that came with it, and run the 10-gallons through and you should be good to go. Also, buy a box of 5 micron filters and replace them frequently. After I run a batch of sap through, I wash with about 10-gallons of permeate with the old 5 micron filter, then pull that filter out, put in a fresh filter, and run another 10-gallons through. Then you are good to go for the next batch.