Sucrose Losses in the Midseason. In the midseason, we were able to obtain a wider range of target FES pH values from pH 5.6 to 6.7. It is not recommended that factories target the FES pH at 5.6, but this sometimes occurs (17). As the FES target pH increased from pH 5.6 to 6.7, hydrolysis usually decreased significantly (P < 0.05), especially in the preevaporators, which is similar to the early season. The higher hydrolysis in preE1 was most likely because it was less clean, i.e., 5 days after the last clean (Figure 5b) as compared to the preE2, which had been cleaned 2 days before.