Last season’s procedural error cleaning the evaporator wiped away today. Much of the nitre and scale came off while boiling the cleaning solution and water. The remainder wiped away easily today. Our pan is again the shiny stainless steel we take pride achieving both inside and the bottom exposed to fire. Lesson learned.
Into the woods at 7:30 AM to pickup the last buckets and covers. Done by 8:00 AM. Then started cleaning the evaporator. Syrup pan done by 10:00 AM. Flue pan done by 1:00 PM. Cleaned the bottling and finishing pans too. All pans are clean and stored upside down for next season.
The new MES membrane is in the storage tube. The old membrane is in a wash cycle. Expect it will need a second wash cycle.
25 overnight. Sunny most of the day with temperature in mid 50s. The pressure gauge is still on the tree. It registered -8 PSI. Trees are still moving sap. The leaves are not out yet so this makes sense.
Back to the farmhouse by 4:30 PM.