Almost a bad day.

[maple flats]

We were boiling, while running the RO yesterday when a friend stopped to talk. Usually not an issue. But apparently we were boiling faster than the RO was delivering concentrate to the head tank. We generally check that but failed to yesterday. At one point my auto draw alarm started to sound. I ran to check, shut off the auto draw and looked at the flues pan level. No sap dseen in the site glass. I immediately opened the woods doors, and started to send permeate into the flues pan along with the permeate. I then looked into the flues pan, the level was about half way down below the top of the flues and nothing was able to flow from it into the syrup pan. With the concentrate and permeate flowing into the flue pan along with the front doors opened, I quickly had good flow into the syrup pan. I then plugged the auto draw back in and was drawing. I tasted a sample, it was not burnt, the pans were also not hurt. If I had been just a few seconds slower catching this, I might be looking for a new evaporator and sugarhouse.
I guess I need to add an audible alarm on my head tank so this does not happen again. That will be a task for after today. The weather report looks like no sap for a week or more after today, that will be one job for that time.
I find no damage to either pan, but it could have been huge!

[BAP]

Good catch Dave. Glad to hear you didn't have any damage. It happens to the best of us, one time or another.

[Burnt sap]

Wow close one. That's it tell all friends to stay away during sap season unless there to help. :lol:

[motowbrowne]

Wow, I'm glad everything was okay. That sounds terrifying.

[O3C]

Somebody on here had a thread that you are always 12 seconds away from a disaster. They knew what they were talking about!

[buck3m]

Yup, very good catch and lesson learned.

[Ghs57]

I've needed my "Oh S#!$!" bucket twice this season so far. Disaster was averted both times, and I may have overreacted, but when the thermometer starts to spike there seem to be few options.

[Lethalbowman]

I had my own O Sh##t moment yesterday about 30 gallons in to my 2nd batch of the season. Things were progressing along nicely and I had nice color in my last section of my devided pan. Out of nowhere I had almost finish syrup mid pan and rising foam. I did all I could to stop it but still ended up with an area about 6" square where the sap burnt on the pan. Long story short I shut things down drew off what I could and then completely cleaned the entire pan and then started another batch with the rest of the sap I had. I filtered the heck out of what I drew off and the taste isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Once finished I will keep that syrup for personal use. Glad I had some good pan cleaner on hand.

[eagle lake sugar]

I have a sight tube on my head tank to show the fluid level. The other day I was boiling along and noticed that the level doesn't seem to be dropping very fast, I climbed up to look in the tank and it was just about empty! The weather had cooled off and the column of concentrate in the sight tube was frozen. Crisis narrowly averted! One I didn't avoid this week was my heater shutting off in the r/o room and freezing things solid. I disassembled things last night and assessed the damage.

[MISugarDaddy]

Wow, it is scary to hear how many of you had near disasters this season. Glad to hear that the disasters were averted, but it is scary to think that situations like that can occur to experienced maple producers. Happy to hear you all caught them in time to not ruin your equipment and season.
Gary

[n8hutch]

Wow, it is scary to hear how many of you had near disasters this season. Glad to hear that the disasters were averted, but it is scary to think that situations like that can occur to experienced maple producers. Happy to hear you all caught them in time to not ruin your equipment and season.
Gary
I know what your saying. I better get an OSB , I have had a few times where I was making syrup in the wrong divider. But once I started drawing off the almost syrup at shutdown and pouring it back in the last channel when I fire back up and establishing a gradient right away if haven't had any problems. I think before my batches were just too big.

[maple flats]

My head tank is nosed against the outside wall on the north side of the sugarhouse, with the pipe coming thru the wall directly and I have a site tube inside, just after the valve. My site tube was empty as was the site tube on the side of the flue pan. I normally watch them both very closely, but on my "almost bad day" I simply got talking with my friend and failed to notice.
Yesterday, I watched both very closely and had no issues.

[Super Sapper]

Wife brought home an office chair for me in the sugar house. Only bad thing is the back is just the right height to turn off the switch for the head tank. For some reason I looked at the switch and it was off. Head tank had just ran empty. Turned it on just in time.