Into the woods by 5:15 AM. It took until 7:00 AM to prepare for cooking. Cleaned the syrup pan; ran rinse cycle on the R/O; pumped sap from the collecting tank to the storage tanks where it feeds the R/O. We had to let the concentrate accumulate in the tank before starting the evaporator at 7:30 AM.
The R/O was processing 55 gallons/hour at 4 Brix. It’s slow going when we are used to 90 gallons/hour with 7 Brix. At 4 Brix, the ratio is 21.5:1. At 7 Bix the ratio is 12:1. We had to cook out 9 ½ gallons more of water. We can cook at 20 gallons/hour so that’s 9 ½ extra gallons of water to cook out is a big difference.
We were concerned the R/O wouldn’t be able to concentrate even at a low rate because of the membrane fouling up. The water from yesterday’s wash as cycle was dirty. It’s better to run another wash cycle until the water is clear, but we needed the R/O today. It got us through.
Visitors at 1:00 PM from the Felician Village. Gave them a tour of the maple syrup operation to explain how maple syrup is made. Always nice to have visitors. And we were cooking today which is more interesting to see.
High 30s overnight. Low 40s, cloudy and windy today. The wind made it feel colder. Light rain started by 1:30 PM. Forecast to change to snow later this evening. 1”-3” possible.
Back to the farmhouse by 2:15 PM.
The day cooking.
7:00 AM R/O start
8:15 AM 3 ¾”
8:55 AM batch
9:00 AM 5”
9:55 AM batch
10:15 AM 4 ¾”
10:50 AM batch
11:00 AM 5 ½”
11:30 AM R/O done
11:30 AM 5 ¾”
11:50 AM batch
12:00 PM 4 ¼”
12:50 PM batch
1:00 PM 2”
1:00 PM visitors
2:15 PM done