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hey traders, well though i bring back this old thread. rebult the old ro. new membrane (mes), new housings (pentair),and fixed many leaks. now she runs great. but i'm alittle short on experience. mabey someone here could make some sents of these numbers? so i started with .5% sap that was 51 deg. then turned up the pessure 350psi.i was getting 3% concentrate. flow meters read 4.5 permeate and 1.25 concentrate. does this look right?
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Changing 0.5% to 1% is removing half the water. So permeate flow would equal concentrate flow in that case. Going from 0.5% to 2% is removing 3/4s of the water, so ratio of permeate to concentrate would be 3:1. 0.5% to 4% is removing 7/8ths of the water, so the ratio would be 7:1.
0.5% to 3% is about half-way between 3:1 and 7:1, so maybe call it 5:1. You are running 4.5:1.25 or 3.6:1. Seems a little low, but depending on the accuracy of your measurements (especially the 0.5% value), you're in the right ballpark.
I suggest tasting the permeate. Most people can taste sugar as low as 0.2-0.3% . If you can't taste sugar, you're probably fine. If you still have doubts, take a gallon of permeate and boil it down by a factor of 10, then cool and measure sugar content, but divide the number by 10 to get the value of your permeate.
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My only question is where are you getting .5% sap? Fall tapping or hand built sap?
I will not be able to help much as I dont own a R.O.
Regards,
Chris
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hey sugarmaker, it was hand made this summer. just had to test it .
"take a gallon of permeate and boil it down by a factor of 10, then cool and measure sugar content, but divide the number by 10 to get the value of your permeate."
good idea. going to do that this coming season. last year i though my ro was ready ,but was not even close. so this year i want to be sure. thanks for the advice
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Also make sure your test instrument is accurate. Make note that a hydrometer can be knocked off by dropping it into the test cup. It must always be lowered gently.