Buckeye Hydro

And here we are... 6 years and almost 200 brewery and distillery customers across the country later.  

The UV light would be on a recirculation loop, so the HDPE tank would not be exposed.

Russ

Great - we'll be here!  What's the name of your distillery?

If the primary concern is reduced water use by your RO system...

How hard/soft is your feedwater?  If your feedwater is soft/softened, and you're using a typically configured residential RO system (something like a 20% recovery - or a 4:1 concentrate to permeate ratio) you can reduce your waste water flow considerably.

If you have a commercial RO system, hopefully a water analysis was done when the system was first installed.  Typically part of that process was limiting concentrate flow to the extent possible, including recirculation.

Russ

On 1/29/2021 at 3:58 PM, whiskeytango said:

Does anyone use the mineral concentrate waste water from their RO system to make mash with? One would think that having the extra mineral content in it would help with the yeast nutrients.  

What you could/should use the concentrate for will vary, because the quality of the concentrate will vary depending upon the quality of your feedwater.  We have customers whose concentrate is better quality that other customer's feedwater, but that is definitely not a given.

Russ

 

1.  Make sure that the tank you bought is specifically for use with RO water.  Many/most tanks are not.

2.  Assuming that your process requires use of a pressurized storage tank, realize that a full tank will typically hold about 50% of the stated capacity.  So for instance, a 40 gallon tank will hold about 20 gallons of water.  The remainder is the air bladder.

3.  Check your incoming water pressure.  Do you have enough to run the RO system (regardless of the presence of the pressure tank).  What does the pressure gauge on your RO system tell you when the system is running.  You mentioned you bought a "cheap" system, so it may not even have a pressure gauge on it.  If that is the case, add one:  https://www.buckeyehydro.com/pressure-gauges-1/

4.  Assuming you have enough feedwater pressure to run the system, add a permeate pump https://www.buckeyehydro.com/aquatec-permeate-pump/ and high pressure auto shut off valve https://www.buckeyehydro.com/automatic-shut-off-valves/ and turn your tank right side up.

If the fill time is still too long for you, you can put up to a 200 gpd membrane in your system.  There are some details to attend to if you do this, so feel free to give us a call and we can walk through the details.

Russ

Any feedwater to an RO system that contains chlorine of chloramine must first run through carbon.  Modern RO (TFC or Thin Film Composite) membranes don't tolerate exposure to those chemicals.

Additionally, if the feedwater is hard, a softener is a common piece of pretreatment equipment.  This typically applies only to commercial RO's, as the membranes are more expensive to replace when they get loaded with hardness scale.

Russ

Where to start?

The two processes, carbon filtration and reverse osmosis, are two entirely different things.  In nearly all circumstances they produce very different water quality.  Yes - if sized correctly, a carbon filter can remove chlorine.  But it will not remove dissolved solids (the "TDS" you've probably heard of).  Reverse osmosis will remove a very high percentage (>95%) of total dissolved solids.

Every distillery we've worked with uses RO water to proof.

Russ 

Well we can certainly help you with an RO System if you're looking for new equipment.

So you'll need room for the RO system (dimensions depend upon gpd capacity; can be floor-standing or wall mounted), and you'll need a storage tank (capacity and dimensions dependent upon your process needs).

Russ

You'll want RO water for proofing, no?

Sediment removal?  UV treatment?

where is your water treatment equipment?

We have spare parts for that system, if needed.

We size carbon tanks,  based upon EBCT - empty bed contact time.  To help reduce the size/expense of the tanks needed to accommodate the longer contact time needed to treat chloramines, we use a special fast-acting (catalytic) carbon.

Russ

On 1/3/2017 at 9:39 PM, Mulderbri said:

We use the carbon filter and go straight to the RO system.  That same carbon filtered city water is used for our mashing but not run through the RO.  We have heard about the chloramine and it not being filtered out in the charcoal filter.  indyspirits.....do you think adding the potassium metabisulfate makes that much of a difference?

Chloramine can be treated with carbon, but the key is correctly sizing the carbon tank, and using the correct kind of carbon.  We see a fair number of vendors of water treatment equipment who don't do this, btw.

Russ

Just a heads up - look carefully at the water quality requirements on the tankless heaters.  Some pretreatment of the water may be needed.

russ 

We stock replacement membranes, carbon blocks, and sediment filters for those units.

Russ

High TDS permeate can be caused by a lot of factors.  For example:

exhausted carbon prefilter(s) have allowed chlorine to get to the membrane for an extended period
membrane is scaled/fouled and has failed
RO membrane housing/internal orings have failed
and not uncommonly, it's caused by faulty TDS readings.  Make sure you let the system run for sufficient time to get past the TDS Creep period before you take a reading/sample.  Be careful  what you use for a sample container.  ANY contamination in the container will cause faulty readings.

If you need some help troubleshooting the system, feel free to give us a call when you're standing in front of it.
 

Russ @ Buckeye Hydro
513-312-2343 

When the filter backwashes and recharges, it sends flow downward through the central riser tube, into the bottom of the tank and the resin - it then flows through the resin, fluidizing and expanding the resin bed.  That is the purpose of that unfilled "freeboard" in the top ~third of the tank.

Ah-ha.  $1700 for a twin 50 gpm softener... I just couldn't see that happening.

Pentair owns both Fleck and Autotrol - two common backwashing valves.  My guess is you bought a softener with a Fleck valve as they are more common.  Probably two 13" x 65" tanks, each with 3 cu ft of softening resin in them.  

If you need a manual for your system we can get you that.

Russ

Beware of the ebay stuff - especially if this is your first RO system and you're not exactly certain what you need and what each component does.

What valve is on that twin?  Did you get the 50 gpm you were looking for?

Plenty of experience... Its what we do for a living.  You're probably looking at two 24" x 41" tanks with 1.5" ports (or larger), with each tank holding 5 cuft of softening resin or more, along with an 18" or 21" diameter brine tank of course.  

On 5/27/2018 at 10:46 AM, B&Co said:

Taking suggestions for Reverse Osmosis System manufacturers/systems you have been pleased with including quality and service. Thanks!

We'd be happy to help you with this if you're still in the market for original equipment of replacement pieces/parts.

Russ