Into the woods by 5:30 AM. Sap in the evaporate was ice. Had to fire slowly until 7:00 AM to melt the ice while not burning the pan. Prepared the R/O during this time so it was ready. Started the R/O shortly after 7:00 AM. The re-circulation pump did not start again. That was discouraging because the R/O makes an easier day cooking.
Expected the same problem as yesterday: the armature in the re-circulation pump was stuck again. Disconnected hoses. Laid the R/O down for access to the pump motor. All for naught because the armature moved freely. Reconnected everything and tried again. Now it worked. We may have been inpatient waiting for the pump to spin up. Took over an hour. We’ll monitor this pump until we feel comfortable it’s dependable. It started and stopped several times today as we changed moods form concentrating to rinsing to washing. The concern is a latent problems that reoccurs when the pump sits for longer time frames.
It was 8:10 AM before we got the R/O going. Between the ice in the evaporator and the R/O we lost 2 ½ hours of cooking. The remainder of the day was okay. We kept more sap in the pans, so it was longer between batches. Four batches into the milk can.
Ran the R/O at 7.5 Brix. At one point the R/O was producing 8.5 Brix. We adjusted the settings to reduce the Brix. The new membrane makes a difference and the incoming sap was 3.5 Brix.
About 30 overnight. Cloudy and upper 30s/low 40s during the day. Won’t freeze tonight.
Back to the farmhouse by 4:00 PM.