Roughly a month away! Time to start planning and thinking... Thinking of expanding my hobby operation slightly. Reverse osmosis and possibly some gravity lines this year. Thinking of a home made cheap RO system. Anybody make one?
I'm not sure if it would work or not but could you pump sap through something like this? Amazon.com: 0PPM Portable 100GPD Reverse Osmosis RO+DI Filtration POQ-4B-100: Kitchen & Bath Fixtures
It would work, looks to have a carbon filter.. I'm looking for more production.Something like this. Homemade Reverse Osmosis System - Mattatuck Madness Maple Syrup
I'm sticking with boiling again this year. We didn't make any last winter as I still had a huge stockpile of syrup in the basement. We're going to try and make 25-30 gallons this season.......
I made one from that same design a couple of years ago and was quite happy. I only ran it the one year - haven't sugared since then due to life, but intend to start again once kids are out of college.
It is alot of time! How much could you prossess over night? I still haven't pulled the trigger on ordering the parts.... Pricing it out is over 500 nowadays days, and I'm not sure if it's worth the cash to save the time. I'd love to cut my boil time in half or only boil once or twice a week on good flows.
It's just too warm here, I usually tap presidents day weekend but it's supposed to be up near 70 this week. Unreal. If it doest cool down DRASTICALLY this coming weekend, I won't be doing it this year.
Should have tapped in December! The older I get the less time I seem to have. I've tapped for January thaws and have been rewarded with super light delicate syrup, then they dry and I put in my normal taps.
Made a finishing pan out of some scrap stainless and two door kick panels(304). It was Sunday and nothing was open! Used .030 MIG wire as filler and tiged it together. It cut my finishing time into 1/6 of the time and will double as a pre heater over my main pan! Went from 8 gallons to 4 finished gallons in an hour!
Boiled last night using my "preheater"... Went from 22.5gph to 27!!!! I think if I run good dry hardwood I can hit 30 an hour!
Boiling this afternoon! Just got goin. Have 4 buckets of ice, preheater took care of them! I have 195 gallons to boil... Haven't checked buckets since yesterday but prepped to boil last night. Trees are dripping on me! If the trees are really flowing I could have another 80-100 gallons to boil by tonight!
I too am looking into an RO but dang I like those numbers your throwing out 28-30gph I can only get 9-11gph on my little evaporator and that's only because it's hooked up to a blower. What's your pan size 4x5? I'm on the mapletrader.com forum and there is tons of small RO builds and advice. I'd like to go from the 70 this year to over 200 taps next year.
48"x37-35 ish can't remember how wide, it's almost the width of the widest part of the oil tank. Used almost a whole 4x10 18 ga sheet with 13 inch sides. It's a drop/raised flue just a "z" 4 inch or so raised triangles, pattern on the bottom. Alota surface area underneath. I was almost considering that pan to go in back and build a continuous flow piggy backing two oil tanks two pans. A sheet of stainless is cheaper than an RO. But I want less time boiling Less wood consumption and less storage.
Last boil(231) yeilded almost 6 gallons. Boiled 170 last night, just finished it at almost 4 gallons! Just shy of 20 gallons of syrup for the year. Reds have budded, probably in the last week of sugaring here.
Sheet of steel might be cheaper but if you have no way to weld it your up a creek without a paddle. Less boiling time and wood used along with the pure water from the RO will be good. As our water is hard and tastes like sulfur.
That's all!!!! Boiled what I had left about 50 gallons erlier this week, have to finish it tonight. Pulled all the taps. A little over 21 gallons of syrup for the year!
