Into the woods by 8:00 AM to cook. Couldn’t get sustained boils so took about an hour longer to finish. Expected to finish by Noon. Finished by 1:00 PM. We may have allowed our self to feel we didn’t have much to cook, so didn’t fire hard enough. This shows up below in the section labeled “The day cooking” in the concentrate tank levels between 10:30 AM and 12:30 PM. We typically drop 3” per hour on the concentrate tank. We should have cooked 150 gallons in 4 hours including startup/shutdown.

6 Brix on the R/O. Tried for 7 Brix. But this sap was 1.5 Brix to start with, a 57:1 ratio. At 6 Brix the ratio is 14:1 so we are already removing 43 gallons of water before boiling. That realization makes 6 Brix feel okay.

Additional thoughts on the R/O wash tank temperature. We have a single 4” membrane. Lapierre didn’t know that when they said a 1 1/4” intake on the feed pump wouldn’t matter. Most of their customers have one or two 8” membranes, or even two 4” membranes. Multiple membranes provides more surface area for friction to heat water. A 1 1/4” intake on the feed pump may work without adjustment for those R/Os.

Maybe 2” of snow. Snow started at 5:00 AM. Didn’t snow hard however. Snowfall rate increased by 8:30 AM but diminished by 11:00 AM. Between 1:00 PM and 4:00 PM we got the heaviest snowfall. Other areas got more snow. We were in between snow bands given the way the storm swirled. By 5:00 PM it started to clear. 24 forecast for tonight with 42 tomorrow.

The day cooking.
8:25 AM increased snowfall rate
8:45 AM R/O start
9:00 AM 4 PSI
9:30 AM concentrate
9:45 AM batch
10:00 AM R/O done
10:30 AM 4.75”
11:30 AM 3.5”
11:45 AM batch
12:00 PM 2.25”
12:30 PM 0.5”
12:50 PM done

Back to the farmhouse by 1:00 PM.