Big leak!
I had my first major leak today. As I was heating the final roughly 25.5 gal of syrup from a 40 gal barrel I set the pump to recirculate. For that I open the draw off valve about half way which drops the syrup into my draw off/mixing tank. For recirculating I don't mix any filter aid in, I just run the diaphragm pump and bypass the filter and send it back into the finisher. My intent was just to get the swyruo mixed better for a more uniform temperature for testing the density. That's when things went real bad. A fitting on the recirculation line burst and syrup was shooting onto the floor. I had to quickly shut off the air line which I did without getting burned, but in the process my clothes were covered in syrup. I managed to put the fitting back together and pump the syrup back into the finisher. At this point I don't yet know how much syrup I lost. After pumping the syrup back into the finisher, I shut everything down, covered everything back up, The finisher, the bottler, the tankless water heater was drained and the power to the shop was shut off (the compressor is about 90' from the sugarhouse so it's quieter). along with the WJ bottler.
Then I drove home to change me clothes and put them in the wash. I took the rest of the day off.
Tomorrow, I'll go clean up the sugarhouse and any equipment that got syrup on it. I will likely need to haul another 100 gal or so of municiple water, the IBC tote I haul water in the off season is getting low. Once clean I'll check density and if still not dense enough I'll light the finisher to evaporate it more. I was bring it from 66.2 up to 66.9% sugar. The last test it still needed to be about 0.2 more dense. Once at 66.9% I'll filter it again and send it to the WJ bottler. Either tomorrow or the next day I'll finally determine how much syrup I lost. After this batch I only have 1 barrel left, a 26.5 gal Barrel. Over that I have a bunch lined up on the counter fromthe previous batch I bottled, I haven't inventoried that yet. I may end up needing another barrel before the 2025 season, Time will tell. I figure I had about 25.5 gal in the finisher when the spill happened, Once I get the remainder packed I'll then have a estimate of how much I lost.
Even before this spill I thought I may run out too soon, this surely won't help. I just have to be glad I didn't get burned when the fitting burst open. It was an insert fitting that failed. A PVC one. Most of my insert fittings are SS, had I changed this to SS it likely would not have failed. I will be SS soon. I think I need to order the part, I have 3/4" and 1" SS fittings as spares but I don't believe I have any 1/2" ones, the failed fitting is 1/2" in a recirculation line. Time to order 2 such fittings, one to use, the other for a spare.
Dave Klish, I recently bought a 2x6 wood fired evaporator from A&A Sheet Metal which I will be converting to oil fired
Now have solar, 2x6 finish pan, 5 bank 7x7 filter press, large water jacketed bottler, and tankless water heater.
Recently bought another Gingerich RO, this one was a 125, but a second membrane was added thus is a 250, like I had.
After running a 2x3, a 2x6, 3x8 tapping from 79 taps up to 1320 all woodfired, now I'm going to a 2x6 oil fired and a 200-425 taps.
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