sugar crystals

[jdrules200]

Can anybody tell me why im getting sugar crystals in the bottom of my gallone jugs? I filtered my syrup 4 times and made sure i was 190 degrees when i bottled it. Not all my glass bottles have crystals but a few do. Any help is appreciated!! Also its only been 2 weeks since i bottled the syrup.

[psparr]

It's too heavy. Check it with hydrometer.

[jdrules200]

I used a hydrometer and it says im rite on the money and i checked to make sure my hydrometer is calibrated and its good psparr

[happy thoughts]

Are you sure they are sugar crystals and not niter?

[jdrules200]

No happy thoughts im not sure this is my first year. They r clear and hard but hot water dissolves them.

[SPILEDRIVER]

its sugar then......only way it can happen that i know of is heavy syrup from to long of a boil....are all the bottles from the same batch????

[jdrules200]

No its 3 different batches

[jdrules200]

How do i fix this?

[psparr]

My next thought is this. When you heat to filter, you are losing some water. Do you moisten your filters prior to filtering?

That will help offset some of the loss of water.

[happy thoughts]

If you checked your density and you think it's on then it might still be niter. By hard do you mean gritty? What size are the crystals? It could be sugar but sugar crystals usually take more than a few days or weeks to form and they keep growing until they look like rock candy. I've never tried to redissolve niter so don't know if that's a good test or not.

How did you store the bottles? Cold will make crystals form sooner. If they are sugar crystals then as spiledriver said it's because you went over density. In that case, I'd run through the things you may have done that could lead to an error in your reading, like not correcting for temp. Bottles filled at the end of the batch may become over dense just due to evaporation in the pan while you're bottling. Keeping a lid on it will help some.

[Sunday Rock Maple]

Test some now with your hydrometer. I think the earlier comment about losing water during filtration and canning is the reason. My first job off the farm (back when dinosaurs roamed the land) was cooking hamburgers for McDonalds -- they take the burger off the grill before it's done as it still cooks from the latent heat in it. You may need to take it just before the red line to get it to test right after when it's cool.

[MapleLady]

I got sugar crystals at the bottom of a canning jar that I had stored in the refrigerator. It was the end of a batch that wouldn't run through my filter.

[802maple]

I got to ask this, don't take it as a insult. Which line on the hydrometer did you use? Cold test or hot test? What was the temperature of the syrup when you did the test?