High Brix RO
This year we bought a high brix RO, I thought I would share some of our experiences, and I have a question if anyone else out there can help.
We made 35 brix concentrate this year, the RO worked really well. We were able to consistently get 30 plus on the brix readings, I would say the average was around 33. Boiling was a little more difficult until we got used to it - we needed to keep the level in the pans higher so that we were able to get good flow through the evaporator, this also made boil-overs a little more common. At that high brix the ratio is about 2.5:1, so the syrup comes off quickly. We never had a long boil day, our best day we boiled for about 8 hours, it essentially saved us an employee, we operated with 1 fewer people this year and we managed easily. Further, with the price of diesel double what it was last year, we saved a huge amount on energy costs as well. In all, taking the credit for the old RO, the upgrade to a high brix machine has a 2 year payback. This is phenomenal, and I encourage others to think about this transition.
We do not refrigerate the concentrate, so we were always careful to boil it within an hour or two of making it. This resulted in a lot of small boils, where we had many 2-3 hour boils in a day (adding in set up and clean up as extra, there is a lot of extra time required on the ends). It would be great to refrigerate the concentrate (as Dr. Tim does) and combine a bunch of boil days into one big day, saving us a lot more time. My question is, if we are able to chill the concentrate to about freezing temperature, how long can concentrate be stored? days, weeks? what about could one go so far as to propose that some concentrate is stored until the season is over and then process it all in May?
PCFarms - Producer of Maple Syrup and Distributor for H2O and DSD
2019 - 30,300 taps
2020 - 34,000 taps
2021 - 38,000 Maple taps, 1000 birch taps