Started snowing at 5:30 AM. By 10:00 AM we had 2”. As the day progressed the weather warmed causing much of the snow to melt. Stayed cloudy.

Into the woods at 6:30 AM to prep for cooking. Started the R/O by 7:30 AM. Could tell right away it wasn’t working. The permeate flow-rate was too high and the high pressure gauge wasn’t even reaching 200 PSI. No visible leaks. Tried flushing with water. Checked the permeate. It had sugar. That’s bad. Pulled out the membrane and found the problem: The U-cup O-ring on the bottom of the membrane did not come out with the membrane. And the cap that fits on the bottom of the membrane was punctured. We noticed the U-cup was loose when installing the membrane. Put on some food grade grease to seal it. That was a mistake. It should have been replaced. It didn’t seal the membrane in the vessel. The fluid flow likely caused the membrane to spin wearing out the cap.

Fortunately we purchased a new membrane before the season. Fetched it from the farmhouse to install. First we had to remove the vessel get the old U-cup out. Fortunately that went well. Never had it apart before. Then flushed about 200 gallons of water through the new membrane.

Started the R/O at 11:00 AM. Watched the sugar content, flow rate and pressure carefully. Soon the Brix started climbing. Went to 6° Brix. Pressure held about 350 PSI and the flow rate looked even better the with the old membrane.

Even with the late start at 11:00 AM we cooked through 325 gallons of the 670 gallons. Out goal was always to cook half today and the other half tomorrow. Just a later start. Instead of finishing at 1:30 PM we finished at 5:30 PM.

Back to the farmhouse at 5:45 PM.