RO'ing Apple Cider

[Amber Gold]

Over the weekend, I was at the local orchard talking with the owner. Among other things, he has an apple orchard and makes his own cider and hard cider. It's unpasteurized but UV treated. If I understand it correctly, he currently buys cider concentrate to sweeten the hard cider after it's done it's thing...I think he called it back sweetening. He wants to create his own concentrate, so he could say everything is from the farm from start to finish. He's wondering if an RO machine could do that, but my concern is it'd ruin the membrane. It sounds like his volume would be in the range of a single post hobby size RO to create the amount of concentrate he would need. What do you guys think? Think it'll work?

Thanks for the help

[Potters3]

Should work may just have to research the right membrane to us. Wouldn't us same for both maple and apple.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Like my RO there is a point that you cant push 40% thru it. Now I'm sure that there is a membrane for all occasions but a simple phone call to the manufacture would enlighten you. I would think the prefilter system would need to be upgraded. I learned this year that all sorts of things can happen when you don't keep up with the filters. I have an expandable CDL 600 and it has 2 long filters and they do clog after 3000 gallons thru them. I think the pulp can be managed with bigger filters and more of them I also would have a slide valve with a double filter set up so you can change them out without stopping the RO.

[minehart gap]

I think that it would depend on how concentrated the cider needs to be. If it's like birch concentrate for non-alcoholic birch beer, the sap is concentrated through a stihl and a little bit goes a long way, if a less concentrated liquid will work then a RO might work.

[Amber Gold]

Hey guys,

Lost track of this thread.

One thought I had is he's going to end up with apple juice instead of apple cider when he's done. AJ is a flavorless excuse from where it started.

I'll recommend he spend some time online to see if someone else has done it.