Gel Cloud in Syrup during finishing?? Help!

[jalbert29]

Second boil today, we boiled down about 35 gallons of sap and everything went great until we brought it in the house to finish it off on the gas range. In the smaller pot I noticed what looked like a gel cloud floating in the syrup. As the temp got higher the cloud dispersed and there are now small blogs of this stuff floating around. The other pot is larger and has more syrup in it so it's hard to tell if it's present in that one too. Does anyone have any idea what this gel like substance is? I"m wondering if it's just sugar sand or if it's something else. All of the sap was stored in 5 gallon buckets buried in snow and it was all crystal clear when I poured it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v204/albertj03/889b28fd.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v204/albertj03/07a2d41b.jpg

[jalbert29]

Now that it's boiling good, this stuff has almost disappeared, I can still see little pieces of it but they are much much smaller.

[PerryW]

Syrup looks good to me. probably just sugar sand.

[John c]

I had the same stuff lastnight as I was drawing off my pan into the finishing pot, but I always filter my draw offs before I finish because it just makes the final filtering that much easier. It was like "nasty black snot"! The final product came out beautiful though.

[slammer3364]

My wife and I had the same thing Sat. nite,we filter ours rite off of evap and never had this before.Noticed it when we were bringing it back up in temp to put in jugs.We ran it thru some cheese cloth over a strainer and it came rite out almost looked and felt like sugarsand when it got caught in cheesecloth. Tasted and looked great

[jalbert29]

Just finished off the syrup and that stuff is no where to be seen now. Looks like it either boiled off or it's getting caught in the filters. Syrup is pretty dark and tastes incredible. Thanks for the peace of mind!!