Sugaring 2014 – Filter Press, Dry Run

So we hooked up the new filter press form Daryl Sheets two weekends ago.  Prior to running syrup though I did this one set up where we ran hot water with filters & diatomaceous earth (DE) though the press to make sure everything was clean and rinsed out real well.  This was the trial run for us to see how everything would work with water.  As you can see below in the series of photos the press consists of a bunch of machined waffle plates, cake plates, and the filter paper.  Because we were only doing a gallon and a half of syrup I arbitrarily decided on using 3 cake plates. Below is the first waffle plate, which is fixed in position at the beginning of the filter press.

After the first plate I place on of the filter papers in front of the waffle being sure to line up the inlet & outlet holes of the filter paper with those on the waffle plate.

Next, I place one of the cake plates on the other side of the filter paper.  The cake plates are going catch all of the DE and the impurities in the syrup when you are using the press.

Once I had a cake plates and waffle plates that I was going to use in place along with the end plate, I found that it would have been impossible to wind the wing nuts onto the threaded rod on the side closest to the hand pump, so I took the remaining unused plates and stacked them up behind the end plate.  These plates filled the gap and allowed me to tighten the wing nuts as if I had been using all of the plates on the press.

I used some 1/2” plastic 90-degree fittings (these will be upgraded next year to quick-connects) and some RV-style water hose that I picked up at the local big box store.  The hose did get soft running boiling liquid through it but did not collapse too bad so we were able to use it for filtering syrup.  Because we are trying to figure this process out I went with two 8’ lengths of hose, which was a paint for the long length but a blessing because we could spread out.  We put a little more than a gallon of water on the stove and brought it to a boil. Then we circulated the boiling hot water with nothing in it through the press, just to see how this thing would work.  The spring clamps from Harbor Freight are a must have for any sugaring operation…

After circulating the hot water through, the boss added the DE to the hot water.  We had to keep stirring the DE in hot water to keep it suspended in solution.

If you look closely in the photo below you can see the bottom hose is milky-white as it sucks up the DE and water solution, and if you look at the top hose you can see that it is clear with crystal clear liquid coming out of the hose.  So, basically the filter papers in the press are catching all of the DE.

After locking up the hand pump (we used to much DE) and not being able to pump any more water through we decided to stop and see what the press looks like on the inside.  Below you can see how we removed the last end cap waffle plate and you can see the white DE behind the filter paper.  There was also a little bit of drippage in the drain pan.

I remove each cake plate and both filter paper were sticking well to each side.

Peeling back the filter paper revealed the cake plate filled with DE.

After this dry run with hot water, we rinsed and cleaned everything, so now it was time to see how well this process would work with some of last years syrup that we had a heck of a time filtering with gravity methods.  Stay tuned for the results.