Into the woods by 5:00 AM to cook. It took an hour to clean the syrup pan. We accounted for that time when planning our day. But we had unexpected problems cooking that set us behind. We expected to finish between 11:00 AM and 11:30 AM. But didn’t finish until 12:45 PM when we just left the valve open to run sap into the evaporator and went to the farmhouse.
The sap was restricted from the tank into the evaporator. It looked like a good stream, but it wasn’t enough to gain sap depth in the evaporator. We had to reduce the intensity of the fire to accommodate the reduced flow so we didn’t run low on sap and burn the pans. Checked for obstructed pipes by disassembling the pipe sections to check for blockage. Looked good. After studying the situation, we’ve concluded the pipes from the tanks to the evaporator are misaligned causing low points that force the sap to flow uphill. Liquids don’t like to flow uphill. We have to reposition the large storage tank to level the pipes and eliminate the low points. We move the large tank when washing. That can cause it to get out of alignment. It didn’t help that the valve on the concentrate tank wasn’t completely open. It was about 7/8 open. With normal alignment it wouldn’t be a problem. We’ll correct these issues before the next session of cooking.
The day cooking.
6:30 AM R/O start
7:00 AM 4”
8:00 AM 7 ¼”
8:05 AM batch
8:30 AM R/O done
8:50 AM batch
9:00 AM 7 ¾”
9:35 AM batch
10:00 AM 6”
10:20 AM batch
11:00 AM 4 ½”
11:20 AM batch
12:00 PM 3”
12:20 PM batch
12:30 PM 2 “
12:45 PM left for farmhouse
34 overnight, but puddles again frozen indicating the ground is cold. Temperature dropped as the morning progressed. It was 25 at 12:45 PM and felt much colder with the wind chill. Cloudy all day. Snow flurries by 1:30 PM for a few hours.
Picked up 10 gallons that dripped overnight in good running trees. Added that to the tank for cooking today.
Back to the farmhouse by 12:45 PM.