The hurrier I go the dumber I get

[maple flats]

Yesterday I have no idea what I was thinking (likely I wasn't). I started up the RO and looked at the flow meters, I couldn't believe my eyes, it was better than ever, I was getting 1.5 gal concentrate and the 5 gpm meter for permeate was pegged out (6 gpm? or more). Since my sap tank was at 2.6% I decided to take a sample of the concentrate to see if my 0-12% sap hydrometer could read it. I tested twice, it read ""ZERO"!! Rather than reasoning this out, I thought something must be wrong with the hydrometer, so I got out my 0-10% one. It also read "ZERO%" sugar. Rather than studying it and reasoning this out, I decided something had gone wrong with the membranes. I rushed home to get the spare set, came back and swapped out the membranes. Then I went to run a permeate wash for the newly installed membranes. Did you guess it? I had left the permeate valve open the night before. I guess I should have known on my 1st 0% test that the only way it could be ) is if I ran permeate. The good news, even after running it thru the RO again, I was still getting no sugar in my concentrated permeate.
Too late schmardt, too soon oldt!!
By the way, we ended up making about 45 gal of Amber after all the issues, and errors.

[maple flats]

By the way, today went much smoother, we had less sap, but still drew about 15 more gal of what will very likely be Amber. I won't know until I finish it tomorrow or Monday, but it looked the same color as yesterday's as it was being drawn. It sure is a true winner on taste. In fact I think this year's crop so far has been the best tasting I've ever made (or had). I've made a lot of great tasting syrup in the past, but this year's seems to be better than the past (at least to me and those who have sampled it so far.

[MISugarDaddy]

Dave you made me laugh reading your post. To hopefully prevent doing what you did, I have my wife double check me and the lines before we fire up the RO. Since she has taken on the job of monitoring the RO when it is running, I don't mind her checking to make sure I have everything set correctly. Good luck with the rest of the season.
Gary