Confused

[ken49663]

Small scale, only 20 taps this year. I'm running my sap through RO twice to bring my sugar content up to 8%. with 17 gallons of this concentrate I'm only getting a gallon of syrup. This does not match the Jones chart? Any ideas? It's just not making sense to me.

[ecolbeck]

How are you measuring your concentrated and finished products? Temperature? Density?

[ken49663]

Both, I run it up to 219, and then check the density.
Density on the sap

[ecolbeck]

That does seem odd. I suspect there is an error in one of the measurements (original/final volumes, original/final densities).

[30AcreWoods]

Have you checked for sugar in your permeate? Sometimes the membranes fail/crack - it can be really hard to spot - and you loose some sugar that way. I always check my permeate to be certain is is all water each time I run my RO.

[ken49663]

Thank you, I'll check that today. at 8% concentrate It's still not right. Last week I had 80 gallons of sap and only ended up with a gallon of syrup. Could I have a bad hydrometer ? It's the only thing I can think of.

[ecolbeck]

Have you checked for sugar in your permeate? Sometimes the membranes fail/crack - it can be really hard to spot - and you loose some sugar that way. I always check my permeate to be certain is is all water each time I run my RO.

Thats a good point. Ken, are you measuring the raw sap or the post RO sap?

[ken49663]

I'm checking the sap at every stage. I'm obsessive about it.

[ecolbeck]

Thank you, I'll check that today. at 8% concentrate It's still not right. Last week I had 80 gallons of sap and only ended up with a gallon of syrup. Could I have a bad hydrometer ? It's the only thing I can think of.

That seems like a possibility but these are really large errors that a slight shift in the hydrometer couldn’t account for.

[spud]

Small scale, only 20 taps this year. I'm running my sap through RO twice to bring my sugar content up to 8%. with 17 gallons of this concentrate I'm only getting a gallon of syrup. This does not match the Jones chart? Any ideas? It's just not making sense to me.

Drop your hydrometer in cold water. If it’s calibrated correctly then it will read 0. Assuming it’s calibrated then check your sap.

Spud