What happens to all that water?

Maple sap is comprised of sugar and water.  Each day we test the sugar content of the sap with a hydrometer because the amount of sugar in the sap varies from day to day.  Sap consists of mostly water (ex: 98%), and a small amount of sugar (ex: 2%).

In our sugaring operation, we use a reverse osmosis machine (R.O.) to remove approximately 90% of the water out of the sap.  So, for every 1,000 gallons of sap we collect, we end up with about 100 gallons of concentrated sap.

The use of a R.O. allows us to boil for less time, thus saving energy.   If we didn't use a R.O., we would be boiling all night long, every single day!
  

Reverse osmosis machine

 

So, you may wonder: what happens to all that water that comes out of the sap?  Usually, if you didn't employ a R.O., all the water would evaporate into the air.  But, since the R.O. directly removes the water out of the sap, we have a large tank that the water flows into after exiting the reverse osmosis machine.  From there, we not only reuse the water to clean the R.O., but to clean our syrup pans as well.

When it gets to a certain point in the season, we must clean our pans from the evaporator every day.  The sugar sand accumulates and a thick coating of it is left on the bottom.  If we didn't clean them thoroughly, they would burn during the boiling process and the syrup would not taste good.  We reuse the crystal clear water from the R.O. to clean these pans, saving a lot of water!

 

A sugar sand coated syrup pan

  

Water from R.O. makes it's way through each section

Almost done!

 

Clean syrup pan