bcarpenter
03-13-2013, 08:00 AM
Well it was bound to happen - I had an epic fail last Sunday while attempting to finish about a half gallon of syrup on the stove and then bottle it. I will try and upload some photos but I am hopeful this is something many of you have experienced and can let me know where I may have went wrong.
1st I drew off about 1.5 gallons of concentrate off of my evaporator on Sunday afternoon after boiling all weekend. The temperature of the concentrate was only about 216F on the thermometer at the draw off, so I knew I would have some boiling to do, but I did not want to wait until closer. As I drew off I ran the concentrate through 2 pre-filters into my SS pot.
I resumed the boil on my stove, and went from about 1.5 gallons to a little more than 0.5 gallons of syrup when it tested out at 62 brix hot (approx 211F).
I then set up my ghetto filtering rig using 6 pre-filters and a funnel and began to bottle when the temp in the pot dropped under to about 200F. I know probably a little hotter than required. I did this method a month ago (and last year) with no issues, bottles are clear, only difference was a month ago I ran about 40 gallons of sap through the evaporator and finished on the stove in one batch in one session because of a freeze up.
I noticed right away that the filters stopped flowing almost immediately, which has not been typical, and there was not the obvious dark brown sludge that I woudl typically see on my top pre-filter. The syrup was hot but not flowing easily coming to almost a complete stop before finishing one bottle.
I ended up going down to 3 filters and would only get one or two bottles before having to swap them out for new/clean filters. I bottled (10) 8 oz glass jars with plastic caps. Everything seemed fine/normal once the syrup was in the bottles that night.
The next morning I was stunned to see what looked like little suspended particles in the syrup, which I am guessing is what people refer to as cloudiness. When I hold the bottle up to the light and tilt teh bottle the particles shift in the syrup.
This morning I had almost a 3/8 inch of settlement in one of the bottles. Any guesses on what I may have screwed up on this batch?
1st I drew off about 1.5 gallons of concentrate off of my evaporator on Sunday afternoon after boiling all weekend. The temperature of the concentrate was only about 216F on the thermometer at the draw off, so I knew I would have some boiling to do, but I did not want to wait until closer. As I drew off I ran the concentrate through 2 pre-filters into my SS pot.
I resumed the boil on my stove, and went from about 1.5 gallons to a little more than 0.5 gallons of syrup when it tested out at 62 brix hot (approx 211F).
I then set up my ghetto filtering rig using 6 pre-filters and a funnel and began to bottle when the temp in the pot dropped under to about 200F. I know probably a little hotter than required. I did this method a month ago (and last year) with no issues, bottles are clear, only difference was a month ago I ran about 40 gallons of sap through the evaporator and finished on the stove in one batch in one session because of a freeze up.
I noticed right away that the filters stopped flowing almost immediately, which has not been typical, and there was not the obvious dark brown sludge that I woudl typically see on my top pre-filter. The syrup was hot but not flowing easily coming to almost a complete stop before finishing one bottle.
I ended up going down to 3 filters and would only get one or two bottles before having to swap them out for new/clean filters. I bottled (10) 8 oz glass jars with plastic caps. Everything seemed fine/normal once the syrup was in the bottles that night.
The next morning I was stunned to see what looked like little suspended particles in the syrup, which I am guessing is what people refer to as cloudiness. When I hold the bottle up to the light and tilt teh bottle the particles shift in the syrup.
This morning I had almost a 3/8 inch of settlement in one of the bottles. Any guesses on what I may have screwed up on this batch?