Into the woods by 5:15 AM to cook. Evaporator going by 5:45 AM; R/O going by 5:50 AM. 32 overnight, but ice on puddles because the ground is cold. Sunny and up to 60 today. That’s getting too warm.

The R/O wasn’t preforming well. It couldn’t process at the expected 90-95 gallons per hour. We ran out of concentrate. That shouldn’t happen. We stopped the R/O at 7:45 AM to change the membrane. We have an extra membrane. In past seasons we used the FilmTec membrane from DOW Chemical. This year we used the membrane from Maple Expert Solutions (MES). We have both membranes professionally washed each off-season. Both come back with a 100% flow rate. The MES membrane should have been fine. But it wasn’t preforming. The FilmTech membrane is about 10 years old. The MES membrane is about 5 years old. Took close to an hour to switch membranes because we had to run 100 gallons of water through the membrane before use.

While the membrane was rinsing, we collected the remaining sap from yesterday. 35 gallons. Total run from yesterday was 295 gallons.

The FilmTech membrane preformed okay. It processed more concentrate then we were cooking which is what we expected. We had about an hour of cooking once the R/O finished.

The leak on the pressure vessel cap returned. It was OK before we switch membranes. We’ll check the seal tomorrow again. But we must find the correct size replacement O-ring.

We got 7-8 Brix on the R/O. That’s good.

Had to take out three pieces of wood from the evaporator at the end because the fire was too hot for the amount of sap in the pan. There are still a few snow banks to quench the burning wood.

The sap will run overnight. Should be big run to collect tomorrow. Considered collecting today too, but by waiting until tomorrow we should get the complete run.

The day cooking.
5:50 AM R/O start
7:00 AM batch
7:45 AM change membrane
8:30 AM batch
8:30 AM 35 gallons of sap
9:00 AM 5 ½” concentrate
9:40 AM batch
10:00 AM 5”
10:55 AM batch
11:50 AM R/O done
11:50 AM batch
12:00 PM 3 ½”
12:50 PM batch
1:20 PM done

Back to the farmhouse by 1:20 PM.