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