Into the woods by 5:15 AM. Back to the farmhouse by 7:00 PM. Almost 14 hours. It’s a long day when the R/O will only go to 4 Brix and processes 50 gallons/hour. The 470 from yesterday is cooked and into the milk cans. We can see the effect of 60 degrees days on the syrup color: it’s darker.
We did order a new membrane. It’s too challenging cooking with this membrane. We’ll plan to replace membranes every 5 years.
We wanted to collect to get the tail end of yesterday’s run. Started collecting at 3:00 PM. Done by 5:00 PM. 250 gallons. More than expected. A long tail end run.
We weren’t finished cooking when we started collecting. The R/O finished about 3:30 PM. There was 4” of concentrate in the tank that we had to cook through when we finished collecting because concentrate will spoil.
Low 40s overnight. Cloudy at 40s during the day. Rain tomorrow. Out early again to cook.
The day cooking.
5:40 AM R/O start
6:45 AM batch
7:00 AM 3 ½”
8:00 AM 4 ½”
8:15 AM batch
9:00 AM 4 ¾”
9:20 AM batch
10:00 AM 5”
10:45 AM batch
11:00 AM 4 ¾”
11:40 AM batch
12:00 PM 4 ¼”
12:15 PM batch
1:00 PM 3 ½”
1:25 PM batch
2:00 PM 3 ¼”
2:35 PM batch
3:30 PM R/O done
5:00 PM 4”
6:00 PM 3”
6:00 PM batch
7:00 PM done