Into the woods by 5:00 AM to cook. There was a higher level of sap in the evaporator than normal. We left a valve open from the storage tank to evaporator yesterday when we pumped the first tank of sap. About 25-30 gallons flowed into the evaporator before we noticed.
Started R/O by 6:45 AM. When starting at 5:00 AM, the R/O would typically start by 5:30 AM. As a result of the later start, we didn’t have a supply of concentrate in the tank. All day we cooked as fast as we concentrated. We were cooking on the edge of R/O performance all day with little margin of extra concentrate. We kept a bucket of permeate nearby if the concentrate ran out.
No leaks on the pressure vessel cap. Our effort to carefully and evenly apply the food grade grease yesterday paid off. Spare O-rings did arrive today.
45 overnight. Sunny all day. The temperature dropped all day. 34 now with forecast of 30 overnight. We’ll see if that’s cold enough to stimulate another sap run. We have high 50s again at the end the week.
We have four milk cans of syrup now. Three of the cans may be Grade A, Golden. The color did drop today because the of the warmer weather.
Running a pH wash on the R/O. It ran 8 ½ hours today. Back to the farmhouse by 4:30 PM.
The day cooking
6:45 AM R/O start
7:25 AM batch
8:05 AM batch
9:35 AM batch
10:40 AM batch
11:55 AM batch
12:55 PM batch
1:35 PM batch
1:55 PM batch
2:00 PM 8” of sap remain
3:05 PM batch
3:20 PM R/O done