So great to hear from you Gary!
For filtering, I think the cone filters with pre-filters are way underrated. Love mine. I can't remember if you used that prior to the vacuum.
I haven't been able to figure out why there is so much hatred toward the cone filter. Too slow? Use two in parallel. I'd probably be up to 4 before I personally would start thinking about something fancier.

For my 30 taps, which came to ~10 gallons syrup this year, one cone filter is way over capacity. I've heard that this overcapacity can cause problems with the syrup not having enough weight to get through. I have not experienced this. I've been using 2 pre-filters. I think one would do the trick for your goal of 3 gallons of syrup.

Andy