Using a homemade reverse osmosis system to concentrate maple sap
When I started making maple syrup, I only tapped a few trees and boiled off the water with propane. It was clear that continuing to use propane wouldn't scale but at the same time I didn't want to spend the time building a wood fired boiler or the money buying one. I had just started heating the house with wood via a rocket mass heater, so if I was going to prepare firewood it would be more valuable heating the house instead of boiling maple sap.
Ultimately, I found some plans to build an affordable reverse osmosis system which would concentrate the sap by removing most of the water before starting to boil.
I used it successfully for a couple years but I got greedy and left it out over night. It ended up freezing and was destroyed by the ice. I was reaching the limit of what I could process with it which was why I tried to run it overnight in order to keep up. This mistake, forced me to upgrade to the current system which should allow me to continue to scale the maple sugar making system here at the homestead.
Some things I want to clarify from the video, the filter can concentrate the sap from around 2 brix to about 6 brix and the pump uses ~45w of power. The actual energy cost to concentrate the sap will depend on the starting sugar content and temperature. So when I say 65 cents that is a very general figure. The biggest takeaway is that the filter if maintained properly will concentrate sap using much less energy than boiling. However, if the filter gets fouled (or frozen...) much of the cost savings are erased.
#homesteading #permaculture #permies #maplesyrup #maplesugaring #maplesugarbush
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I used it successfully for a couple years but I got greedy and left it out over night. It ended up freezing and was destroyed by the ice. I was reaching the limit of what I could process with it which was why I tried to run it overnight in order to keep up. This mistake, forced me to upgrade to the current system which should allow me to continue to scale the maple sugar making system here at the homestead.
Some things I want to clarify from the video, the filter can concentrate the sap from around 2 brix to about 6 brix and the pump uses ~45w of power. The actual energy cost to concentrate the sap will depend on the starting sugar content and temperature. So when I say 65 cents that is a very general figure. The biggest takeaway is that the filter if maintained properly will concentrate sap using much less energy than boiling. However, if the filter gets fouled (or frozen...) much of the cost savings are erased.
#homesteading #permaculture #permies #maplesyrup #maplesugaring #maplesugarbush
View quoted note →
The weather conditions this season have caused the maple sap to be cold and stay cold which drastically slows down the ability of the RO system to filter water out of it. I ran into a bottle neck where there is more sap than I can keep up with concentrating so I needed to come up with something quickly!
Ideally if the temperature of the sap is 77°f the filter will operate most effectively without damaging the RO membrane. Of course, my mind immediately turned to Bitcoin mining for the heating solution. What I came up with was an immersion system using the homebrew equipment I already had to heat the sap just before it entered the RO. This would allow the majority of the sap to stay cool keeping it from spoiling and still remove the most water possible.
