Category: 2025: Season 108 Page 1 of 2

Cold overnight again. 21, but dropped to 18 at dawn. That causes a lot of ice. Mostly sunny today with temperature up to mid 30s. It took until 9:30 to start melting but the temperature rose slowly. It was after Noon before the PSI came up and the trees started slowly dripping. We waited until 4:00 to collect to give an extra hour for ice in the buckets to melt. There was still ice to dump, but the extra hour did help. Pickup up 260 gallons, but there is approximately 40 gallons still in the woods because we didn’t have extra collecting pails to haul it in. We’ll get it tomorrow. It’s forecast to be warmer overnight.

Into the woods at 11:00 AM to put the cap on the R/O pressure vessel. Then back into the woods by 3:15 PM to prepare for collecting. Done collecting by 6:00 PM. Pumped the collecting tank into the storage tank. Back to the farmhouse by 6:35 PM.

Mid 20s overnight. Sunny and low 40s during the day. Started melting by 10:30 AM. Trees warmed slowly and started dripping by Noon. Not enough to collect today, but hopefully tomorrow we can collect. There is ice in the buckets. Trees will drip into the evening. Low 20s tonight so ice will re-form. We’ll need to evaluate the ice situation tomorrow.

Into the woods by 8:30 AM to fix a broken spout and replace the zip tie on a sap-sak. Also brought the top cap of the pressure vessel to the farmhouse for maintenance. The O-ring has a larger cross-section than the spare O-rings we have so we couldn’t replace it. But the O-ring looks OK and is pliable. We removed the buildup of food grade grease to restore good surfaces for the O-ring to seal against. Also replaced bolt with burr on the threads that could affect how it tightens down.

A note on food grade grease. This grease isn’t the type used to lubricate other machinery like vehicles, engines, other other equipment. This grease is specifically designed and blended for use in the food industry where it could have contact with food. If you ingest this grease, you won’t get sick. Don’t eat it, but incidental contact isn’t harmful. It conforms to FDA Regulations CFR 21 Section 178.3570 for Incidental Food Contact. It’s also: NSF H1 Registered; Halal Certified; and Kosher Certified. With the R/O, we use it as a sealant for the O-rings where it is exposed to incidental contact with sap in the R/O.

Tomorrow’s forecast is partly cloudy and low 40s. Monday and Tuesday’s forecast is low 50s. That’s warmer then we like.

Low 20s and wind overnight made it very cold. The day was sunny and up to mid 30s, but it didn’t start to melt until after Noon. Trees tried to drip. Later in the day they likely produced some sap.

Big swing in the weather. Yesterday it was cloudy and rainy. Today, sunny but colder. The rain did melt most of the snow.

Into the woods by 9:00 AM to check on the evaporator and get the size of the nuts and bolts for the R/O pressure vessel top. Then went to pickup extra nuts and bolts, food safe thread seal, an extension cord, and metal bars to help support the evaporator pan.

Tomorrow we’ll replace the O-ring on the R/O pressure vessel top and perform other maintenance including replaced a broken spout and sap-sak.

Into the woods by 5:15 AM to cook. Temperature 40 with rain. Rain was forecast to change to sleet or snow later in the day as the temperature droped. The ground is still frozen so the rain accumulates into large puddles. We saw similar conditions in the 2022 season with deep frost and rain. After the frost came out, we got large sap runs.

Got the R/O going by 6:00 AM. However, when increasing the pressure setting on the high pressure pump that does the concentrating, the top lid on the pressure vessel that contains the membrane, leaked. The lid is 4” in diameter. It bolts to the pressure vessel. It has a plastic insert with an O-ring to seal where the lid meets the vessel. We considered replacing this O-ring during setup because it’s over 5 years old. We should have replaced it. We’ll replace before the next use.

Stopped the R/O. Unbolted the lid. Added more food grade grease around the O-ring to help seal. We still had a small leak, but pushed on with concentrating. While reassembling, we dropped a nut and couldn’t find it. We scrounged around the garage to find a replacement. This set us back 45 minutes. It was 6:45 AM before we resumed R/O operations. We’ll pick up spare nuts and bolts for the lid. After we finished cooking, we found the nut 2’ behind us. That wasn’t expected. We search around the R/O, but not behind where we stood.

It took over an hour to refresh and relearn the R/O adjustments. At one point we were at 9 Brix. The R/O is rated for 8 Brix and can’t sustain a higher level. We also had to lower the pressure because of the suspect O-ring. We settled in at 6 Brix.

The R/O finished by 10:35 AM. We were cooking at almost the same rate the R/O was concentrating sap. 1 ½” remained in the concentrate tank when the R/O finished. In Past seasons, the tank had 4” – 8” because we were concentrating faster than cooking. It’s nice to concentrate and cook at the same rate, but this could indicate the R/O wasn’t preforming as well as it’s rated. We typically get 90-95 gallons/hour with the R/O. Today it was 65 gallons per hour. The hope is the O-ring replacement will allow higher pressure to give better performance.

We finished cooking shortly after 11:00 AM, then configured the R/O for a wash cycle. We were back to the farmhouse by 11:30 AM just as the rain changed to sleet/snow.

The day cooking
6:00 AM R/O starting
7:00 AM 2” concentrate tank
8:00 AM 1 ¾”
8:30 AM batch
9:00 AM 2”
9:30 AM batch
10:00 AM 1 ¾”
10:10 AM batch
10:35 AM R/O done
10:55 AM batch
11:10 AM done

Mid 30s overnight. Cloudy and low 40s today. Light rain early this morning. Trees ran late yesterday and overnight. Not a big run, but we collected 260 gallons.

Worked on new equipment set up this morning. We’ll say more about that later. Into the woods by 11:30 AM to check buckets. Enough to collect. Back into the woods by 1:00 PM to wash tanks so we could collect by 2:00 PM. Finished collecting by 4:00 PM. Pumped the collecting tank into the strage tank. Brought over 3 milk cans while we had the tractor out. We’ll use them tomorrow for water and maybe syrup.

Tomorrow we cook. Back to the farmhouse by 5:00 PM.

30 overnight. Partly cloudy and low 40s by the afternoon. The ground is clod and didn’t start to melt until 1:00 PM. Light rain started by 3:30 PM.

Tree pressure registered -5 PSI this morning then up to 22 PSI. Spouts trying to drip, but the ground is still frozen.

Into the woods by 9:00 AM. General cleaning and organizing. A main focus was improving safety by adding an OSHA approved First Aid kit and a binder for Material Data Safety Sheets (MSDS).

The First Aid kit provides quick access for treating cuts and burns that happen when working around the syrup building.

The Material Data Safety Sheets provide safety formation on the various chemicals we use in the syrup building: Milkstone Remover for cleaning the pans. Bleach for cleaning tanks. Filter Aid (diatomaceous earth) for filtering finished syrup. The information for safe handling and first aid is in the binder. None of this is particular dangerous but diatomaceous earth is a fine powder and can cause respiratory problems if inhaled. Bleach should never be mixed with other chemicals. We’ll inventory everything we use and add MSDS for it.

Back to the farmhouse by 1:30 PM.

Cold overnight. Sunny and up to 30. Tree pressure at 18 PSI but no sap. Trees recovering from two days in the teens and the ground is still frozen. Forecast for 40s tomorrow. Snow/rain mid-week.

Into the woods by 4:15 AM. We wanted to start cooking before ice formed in the tank. It was 15 with strong winds causing below 0 wind chills. We were relieved to find the stainless steel storage tank was ice free.

It took close to an hour to clean the evaporator pan. It had rust particles that flaked off the stack. The particles were difficult to remove. The R/O also had left over food grade grease we needed to clean off of the blue water filter and pressure vessel top.

Stated the evaporator fire by 6:00 AM after verifying the pipes weren’t frozen. Then inserted the membrane and configured the R/O for the initial wash with 200 gallons of water.

The feed pump wouldn’t start. The apprehension we mentioned yesterday became real. The pump and entire R/O had power, but the feed pump wouldn’t spin over. The motor gave a buzz instead.

By 8:00 AM we went to Plan B to cook old school without the R/O. It became a much longer day than we expected.

We called a local well and pump specialist. They provide well water solutions. The R/O is a water pump so we speculated a they should comfortable working on it. They arrived by 1:00 PM. We briefly explained the R/O operation and then demonstrated the feed pump’s behavior. Of course, the pump worked.

We’re pretty sure the water hitting the cold metal on the feed pump caused the water to flash freeze. Cold metal causes water to rapidly lose heat and freeze. We experienced this effect with the metal pipes from the tanks to the evaporator once or more each season. But we didn’t expect this with the R/O because we had the heater turned on in the R/O room. By 1:00 PM it warmed enough to thaw so the pump worked. It was likely worked earlier, but we didn’t try. If water was in the R/O last night this wouldn’t have happened because the water and metal would be the same temperature.

It was after 2:00 PM when the wash cycle finished. There wasn’t enough sap remaining to use the R/O so we finished the day old school.

Sunny all day. Up to 25. The wind stopped late in the afternoon. It’s cold tonight again. Tomorrow a little warmer. Next week looks like favorable conditions.

The day cooking
8:00 AM 17 ½”
9:00 AM 16 ¾”
10:00 AM 14 ½”
11:00 AM 13 ¼”
12:00 PM 11”
12:00 PM batch
1:00 PM 8 ¾”
2:00 PM 6 ¾”
3:00 PM 4 ½”
4:00 PM 2 ½”
4:05 PM batch
4:30 PM done

Its possible the batches are Grade A Golden, but we won’t know for sure until we finish and bottle it.

Back to the farmhouse by 4:45 PM

Most seasons we are scrambling to get the R/O ready while have a tank or more of sap to cook. We are ahead of the curve this season. The R/O has all the hoses connected and is ready for the membrane. We also have tank of water to rinse the membrane. There is still apprehension about it starting properly. We’ve had troubles some seasons, specifically, two feed pumps in five years.

Into the woods by 8:30 AM to connect the R/O and connect the tanks to the evaporator. It took too long to connect the tank valves to the outlet pipe. If the valve isn’t correctly aligned, the threads won’t catch. The valves also use reverse threads (tighten to the left) adding to the challenge. It was close to 45 minutes to get both valves connected. The trick seems to be treading the nut on the outlet first, then thread the valve into the nut. That method worked on the first or second attempt.

Collected at 2:00 PM. The run was over by then as the weather changed from partly cloudy to cloudy and windy. Tonight’s temperatures are in the 20s. It was 50 today. Collected 235 gallons. Liquid today, ice tomorrow.

We plan to start cooking early in the morning because the temperature falls after midnight and we want to try to avoid ice in the tanks and froze pipes.

Back to the farmhouse by 4:45 PM

30 more taps using the sap-sak bags are out. Total taps: 410. If we have a normal season with 1.5 pints per tap we should get 75 gallons of syrup.

Storage tanks are clean. A tank of water for the initial R/O membrane wash is ready. We have new PVC pipes from the storage tanks to the evaporator. The galvanized pipes were old and heavy. Last season we had a blockage in the pipes. See http://mapleacres.com/?p=1898 These pipes are much lighter, use stainless steal valves, and are food grade with NSF-PW rating. PW is for potable water. We spent several weeks planing these pipes to properly identity and source all the fittings. We aren’t experienced plumbers.

Tomorrow we’ll connect the R/O hoses. We also plan to collect. There are 1-2 quarts in the pails, but it gets colder and Saturday and Sunday. We want to collect before the sap turns to ice.

We stopped by the General Contractor for our house. While commenting that we expect the season to start slow because of deep frost due to lack of snow cover during the January cold spell, they commented the frost is 57” deep. They had to dig a septic system trench. Typical frost depth is 48”

Low 40s and cloudy today. Light frost overnight. Into the woods by Noon. Back to the farmhouse by 4:30 PM.