Cleaning up after cooking high concentrate

[Haynes Forest Products]

Over the last year with the advent of more and more producers going to RO's and now high concentraters What have you done to met the cleaning needs. Reading about Glenn Goodrich who breaks down his equipment every night and does a total clean. Dr Perkins mentioned that with their new rig its more intensive cleaning. I have been trying to get things cleaned up every night but I don't have a night crew to do it.

With the plan to go with every 3 day cooking that gives me time to let it self clean to a point. I still need a good system for dumping the contents of the rig into separate containers and keep it safe/cold. Then I need to get it full of Permeate/cleaner and let it soak. Pumping Permeate is a PITA so I'm thinking elevates cage tanks fills as I produce it and then a 2" line into the pans for quick fill. I have 2" SS dairy pipeline from all 4 corners of the flue pan to a sump pit that shoots it out of the shack.

If I was to design from scratch I would have rafters full of tanks and gravity would be my friend. Power washers from all four corners from a central pump. Vacuum system to suck the sweet from the pans into refrigerated storage tanks that would have gravity filters so the hot sweet could be clean and clear when it goes into the cleaned rig.

I would have agitation or a circulation pump that would keep the cleaner moving with a settling tank for the loose crap. I power wash my entire rig in place and sooner or later the arch will tell me I have been very unkind to it. I would have the arch made with that in mind. Floor drains would be on the outer perimeter and then a complete grate system under the entire evap out to the outer most plumbing. Walls woul be white plastic panels water proof. The list goes on and on. OH and room for my SS scoot about because I'm doing this till I keel over.

[minehart gap]

Haynes, with all of that in mind what is the proper protocol for end of day when boiling concentrate? I am about to get on the RO bandwagon and am wondering how I need to prepare. Can I leave the sap and near syrup in my pans like normal or drain every time I boil? Does this depend on how concentrated the sap is before entering my pans? What all does someone that has not experienced a RO in operation need to know and be prepared for?

[Maple Man 85]

Our cleaning starts while we are in the shut down process... I'll run the rig wide open and power through the sap and put permeate in the concentrate tank so we don't burn the pans. While that happens we're doing a wash on the RO and letting the fire die down. We drain the sweet into the draw tank and the flue pan gets pumped back into cold storage. At that point permeate gets put in the evaporator with vinegar and the heat from the fire bricks warms everything enough that in the morning everything wipes clean. drain the pans, power wash, take a ph reading to ensure all the vinegar is washed out and you're ready to go for next time.

At a high level this is what we do there's valves I'm turning to redirect flows or shut off flows but in its simplest form this is what I do. Produces clean because there are proven studies that state sanitation equals lighter syrup.

We've left the sweet in the syrup pan overnight but never leave the flue pan. The flue pan is the most likely to turn especially towards the ends of season or if you've got an extended period when you're not cooking.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Mapleman and I are on the same page when it comes to moving things alone. If you get an RO that has auto systems in it then its like doing house laundry, you put nit in walk away and do something else. I reconfigured my tank farm so I can cold store my concentrate. I won't store any sweet in my pans as long as I can run it all thru the pans in a reasonable time.

I have been trying to chase all the sweet from the rig at the end of every boil and then start the cleaning process. I made 20 gallons of bear bait this year because I stored under density syrup out of my finish pans to clean the rig and then was delayed because of weather. My best way is to cook it all and chase all the sweet and then isolate the finish pans and cook down close and send it to the finisher. I can then walk away from a full warm evap full of permeate with vinegar and hot pack everything. I can then relax and get back to the woods and clean it up.

I believe you need to design you shack with good product and traffic flow so you can keep an eye on all the systems. Being able to cook and clean as you move the sap thru the shack and when the last concentrate if dropping into the evap your RO is self cleaning and the finisher is getting close so you can hot pack and get to bed.

The next day the rig is soaking and the syrup,is tucked away in drums and the woods are calling your name.

[DrTimPerkins]

Haynes, with all of that in mind what is the proper protocol for end of day when boiling concentrate? I am about to get on the RO bandwagon and am wondering how I need to prepare. Can I leave the sap and near syrup in my pans like normal or drain every time I boil? Does this depend on how concentrated the sap is before entering my pans? What all does someone that has not experienced a RO in operation need to know and be prepared for?

The process is quite similar to boiling with sap. The major difference is that niter builds up faster with concentrate than it does with sap (same amount of minerals in a smaller volume of liquid), so you need to stay on top of it. Yes, you can leave the sap/syrup in the pans until you need to clean (although you may need to fire up briefly every day or two to prevent/reduce spoilage).

The way we deal with it is evolving, but essentially we will check the pan at the end of a boil. If there is little or no niter, we leave the concentrate/syrup in it until the next boil. If we're getting some niter build-up and want to clean, we drain the frontpan into one side of a drawoff container and the backpan into another (we do the frontpan more often than the backpan). Then, depending on when we think we might need to boil again, we'll rinse the pan first (with it tipped up on edge a bit), then either lay it flat again and flood it a few inches deep with permeate and let it sit for a day or two, or we will put the pan washer on it and recirculate warm permeate through that with a pump for a few hours. If the pans are bad, we may add a small amount of pan acid, or we will switch out the entire frontpan. Our pans are a bit oversized so we don't get as much niter as we would with a smaller rig. It is not at all uncommon for us to do a boil of 2.5-3 hrs without switching sides at all, but merely will switch sides at the start of each boil.

Since the concentrate/sap goes into the drawoff tank hot, and we immediately cover it, we not seen any spoilage as long as we boil again within a few days (depending on temperature).

I'm not an advocate of "chasing the sweet." It adds permeate and thins the sweet some and can make it more prone to going ropey.

[DrTimPerkins]

I believe you need to design you shack with good product and traffic flow so you can keep an eye on all the systems. Being able to cook and clean as you move the sap thru the shack and when the last concentrate if dropping into the evap your RO is self cleaning

Exactly. Efficiency in choice of equipment and work-flow is very important in getting the work done in a timely manner without a lot of excess running around and worry. The first year after we got the new Lapierre HyperBrix system we ran the sugarhouse in our normal fashion to gain experience with how it worked and to test the limits. The second year we completely changed most of the rest of our equipment and changed the process and flow of everything from sap filtering to putting it in a barrel. We don't move liquid around by hand hardly at all now....it is all pumped in one form or another.

....and the finisher is getting close so you can hot pack and get to bed.

And that is another change we made....no more finisher. Syrup comes off the evaporator into a drawoff tank, is standardized (density check), DE added, through the filter press and into a barrel (with 4-5 barrels tied together so we don't need to worry about overflows). When the evaporator is shut down, we're done filtering within 10-20 min and already cleaning up.

[Haynes Forest Products]

I will add that how much syrup you produce in a continuous boil / day will dictate how you treat your equipment and your product. Making 20 gallons that you bottle and retail is different than hot packing drums. Circumstances also dictate your equipment needs. I have so much minerals in my sap that when I'm done with 2500 gallons of sap my pans are trashed with sand and niter. This is the first time I have produced Ropey syrup and I believe that was because of the weather delays and my heated shack.

I was never a big fan of chasing sweet until I needed to get everything out and I still don't have a good way to drain, store and replace it back into the clean Evap. With my plan of chilling concentrate My operation is going to evolve once more. I already moved and added 2 more cage tanks to a total of 5 for my permeate. Because I will chill and store my concentrate I don't need as much sap storage and can now run the RO throughout the day without fear of spoilage.

Putting a few inches of sap in my finish pans won't clean them because I get niter 8" up the sides. I can't reverse flow my pans because it would take about the same amount of time switch or clean them. I see guys with big flat pan filter carts that they have taking up space by their draw offs and that's fine. I just have one in the bottling area that is a 24" X 48" with filter tray that is elevated above the filter press and it has propane heat under it. It holds 70 gallons and I draw off over density and at the end of the boil I send everything that I chase from the rig into it and hot pack.

[PerryFamily]

I drain and swap my syrup pan after every boil, unless there is zero nitre build up. Then swap and clean both front pans every other boil. I drain and clean my flue pan every hundred to hundred fifty gallons or so. This usually involves pressure washing or an acid soak if real bad. I haven’t used permeate to clean pans as I don’t have a good way to store the permeate or get it into the pans that isn’t a Dick around.