My plan 2022/23

[Swingpure]

I heard on the weather report today that you may be expecting some snow in the next several days once it leaves the Dakotas. Sounds like you may get a significant amount too, good luck.

Our forecast keeps changing. At the moment the snow will be north of us, but this morning it was forecasting about six inches. We have had an amazing October and November. It has really saved on the firewood. I will have bonus left over for the evaporator if need be, although it will not be split wrist sized.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/002f...am6TVoK7ExHx1Q

Nice eclipse here this morning!
https://share.icloud.com/photos/072u...60KWAWs4WxRdrA

[DrTimPerkins]

Preliminary research suggests that warm falls and dry summers are associated to some degree with lower sugar content in the spring. Trees have to maintain their living tissues later in the fall when the temps are above freezing. In doing so they use up some of their stored sugars for respiration when it is warm. Since the leaves are gone, they can't make more to replenish the lost sugar.

Fortunately, the correlation is not real strong, and there are multiple interacting factors to consider. Making a prediction from this is difficult, and liable to be incorrect. The science is just not mature enough yet.

[Swingpure]

The winter side of fall arrives here this Saturday. Today I was trying to do the last of the things I can do now to be ready for the maple season when it starts. Here it is usually near the beginning of March. Today I was putting away my collection barrels and other storage tanks and vessels.

Including the capacity of the collection barrels, I could store up to 600 gallons of sap and 150 gallons of permeate. I will never have to hold 600 gallons at any one time, but it is good to know if I get a couple big flow days, I can handle it.

Last year I don’t think I had even a single high flow day, although as I have mentioned before, locals said it was a poor year.

As we move into winter, I am hopeful that my divided pan, float box, base stack, base stack plate, 36” double wall pipe and pan lid arrives in January or before. Once the base stack arrives, we will cut the hole in the metal roof and make the supports for the double wall pipe.

I am not sure if the plugs for the divided pan comes with the pan. (As I understand it, when you are finished for the night, you plug off the openings at the end of the divided runs to help maintain the gradient.)

I can see most of my lines from my yard and today I could almost see he sap flowing down the lines. Four months to go!

As homework this winter, I will watch every divided pan video I can.

[Pdiamond]

Gary your weekend forecast is almost identical to ours.

[Swingpure]

Gary your weekend forecast is almost identical to ours.

Be safe driving! I got my winter tires on yesterday.

I just see each day of winter, as one day closer to sap flowing.

It has been a good fall, and as I mentioned before, I did not use as much firewood as normal.

[Swingpure]

These are my lines, some are on my lot, some are on my adjacent neighbour’s lots, and some about 6 lots away from me. As you can there are a lot of trees.

The first pic has a drop of about 30 to 35’, the second pic has a drop of about 80’. The lines on the second pic should be racing with sap if I tap them correctly.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/072Y...CBRXKw-m1-a6bg

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0bc-...z9IdBj-fEeriLg

[berkshires]

Preliminary research suggests that warm falls and dry summers are associated to some degree with lower sugar content in the spring. Trees have to maintain their living tissues later in the fall when the temps are above freezing. In doing so they use up some of their stored sugars for respiration when it is warm. Since the leaves are gone, they can't make more to replenish the lost sugar.

Fortunately, the correlation is not real strong, and there are multiple interacting factors to consider. Making a prediction from this is difficult, and liable to be incorrect. The science is just not mature enough yet.

This is fascinating - I never knew this. I bet it helps explain something I've noticed - that the further north producers seem to have sweeter sap. Two posts down, Swingpure talks about how winter is arriving in his neck of the woods. That's far from true for me, and far far far from true further south.

Thanks for sharing!

Gabe

[Swingpure]

I walked my 3 new lines today on the steep hill. The main purpose was to remove as many tripping hazards as I could so they would not be a problem when I am either walking or snow shoeing in the snow.

It was a good thing I did, because besides removing the tripping hazards, I found four spots where branches had come down in a recent wind storm we had, that had lowered the line, but fortunately did not break it.

I also made some slight height adjustments on some of the lines, just to improve the slopes of the lines.

I plan to walk the lines at least once a month and hopefully twice a month, mostly to break a trail in the snow, but also to check the lines.

[Swingpure]

16 gallons for a flush, wash, or rinse is not enough of ypu are putting 100 gallons thru it per day. I would recommend keeping all of your permeate for these purposes. I have two 60 gallon barrels for permeate from 100 trees on 3/16 vacuum. Having all the permeate you can for flush, wash, rinse purposes is a good idea.

A few questions:

For the first flush prior to processing the sap, I will be using filtered and UV’d lake water.
How many gallons of that water will I need to do a proper initial flush?
Will all of that be waste after it has flushed the membranes?

Let’s say the first time I run the RO is with 50 gallons of sap, in the perfect world, it will produce 25 gallons of permeate.
Is that enough for the flush?
Is that permeate waste after the flush or can it use it again for another flush?

I guess after the flush, you have to wash it with a combination of either permeate and soap or water and soap. Is that all waste? How many gallons of soap and water/permeate is need for the soap wash?

Thanks

[DRoseum]

Do no reuse flush water/ permeate. Once you use it, discard of it.

Use MOST of your permeate each day for flushing. It will really help keep your system performing best. If you get 25, use it. If you get 50, use it. Even when needle valve is wide open on a flush cycle, you will get some permeate flowing out. I run that permeate trickle right back into permeate tank i am drawing from to prolong the flush.

Ro soap is NAOH. It's a base solution and there are instructions for how to mix it up before use. Goggles and gloves are a must. Most indicate a PH around 11 (check membrane limits as well). RO bucket and mattatock madness site have good cleaning instructions. Basically recirc that for a while and then flush liberally with as much permeate as you can, ensuring your PH returns to neutral. You won't need to wash daily if you are running your RO with low recovery rates on the membranes (recovery rate per membrane = permeate out / inlet flow) and are flushing regularly with liberal amounts of permeate. Probably a couple washes per season and one at year end is good depending how much sap you run thru it etc.

Initial rinse of new membranes requires a fair amount of water. Be sure to have a pre-filter in your housing. The membrane manufacturers typically specify how long to flush them for when brand new. Most residential membranes say 1 hr. With 3 membranes (400gpd + 2 x 150gpds) in series running 1 hr --> 700gpd/24hrs = 30 gallons...I'd recommend 50 gal or more.