Fuzz in Bottle?

[SeanD]

The latest batch I bottled, has what looks like very small, whitish, fibrous pieces floating in it. It's like the color of niter. When I have accidentally been too heavy before, it was a light haze at the bottom of the bottle. What I'm seeing is more fuzzy looking clumped on the bottom and a bunch of it is suspended in the syrup itself. It's not an overall haze, they are more like individual pieces.

This was originally a very heavy batch that had solid rock crystals in my bulk bucket. I brought it down to the correct density with water and lighter syrup over a low heat.

Is this niter or undissolved sugars? Any ideas? Does it just need to be refiltered and rebottled or is something else going on here?

Sean

[cbhansen]

I had the same issue with my final bottle of the season. I had 10 gallons of about 15% left from my final boil of the season and I figured I'd just boil down it down in a turkey frier instead dumping it. I took it down to 66 / 67% and filtered it through a orlon filter (with 2 pre-filters) that I had run a few gallons of syrup through earlier in the day. The result was the same as you described - a white fibrous looking material suspending through the syrup. The following day, the majority of the fibrous stuff has largely settled to the bottom and the syrup was a light amber. I assumed it was the result of not cleaning my filter. When I get back to the farm, I'll have look at the bottle. I'll use it myself or heat and re-filter later. I did have a look of niter this year compared to past two years when I essentially had zero sand.

Carl

[ForFun]

I had and am still having this same problem with about 3 gallons of syrup i have. My "almost syrup" was refrigerated for approximately 1 week before i was able to finish it. Once the hydrometer floated on the red line (211 deg hot line), I quickly poured it through 2 cone prefilters and 1 wool cone filter (pre wet the filters). Brought it inside and put the stock pot on the stove and made sure to keep the temp of the syrup between 185 - 190 deg F while i was ladling it out and into mason jars. (I also finished 2 other batches of "almost syrup" this same night, using this same process with out having any problems) Anyhow, the next day I noticed a tremendous amount of floating fuzz in every jar from this particular batch. After a few days, it mostly settled to a thick layer on the bottom of the jars. Yesterday, i finally got around to dumping all syrup out of the jars back into a stock pot, put every jar in the dishwasher and washed. Re heated and checked the syrup with a hydrometer, re filtered again, this time using 4 prefilters inside the wool cone filter (pre wet the filters) and back on the stove keeping the temp between 185-190 deg F while i ladled the syrup back into the mason jars. Everything looked very clear and i was happy as i figured i was finally DONE! Well, not so much. This morning i woke up and every jar has this floating fuzz in them again. Does not appear to be as bad as the first time around, but still not very appealing. WHAT am i doing wrong....help???

[SeanD]

Thanks for your responses. Although we don't have an answer yet, it's nice to commiserate. My plan is to dump, reheat, refilter and rebottle, but I'm hoping to avoid the same trouble you did, ForFun. When you reheated to filter it, how high did you go? If it was niter, it should have filtered right out.

The majority of the fuzz is on the bottom, but I am amazed at how much is suspended in the syrup still.

Sean

[seclark]

I've had the same problem in the past so I now reheat the filtered syrup in a double pot setup.I put a smaller pot inside a larger one,the larger one having water.It takes longer to reach the 185-190 temperature but there is no niter.I believe that when you reheat the syrup the liquid right on the bottom of the pot must get just hot enough to create niter even though the temperature is not to the boiling point as a whole but just enough heat at that spot to do the damage.If you still have issues you may try this method to see if it works for you,I know it stopped my head aches.:-|

[SeanD]

You are right. Building a water jacket bottler has been on my list for a while. I guess part of the reason I don't get to it is because I bottle successfully most of the time. I reheat slowly and stir to cut down on hot spots, but it's quite possible that I didn't stir as much this time. I remember I was trying to get the bottling done and on to other things that day.

If this is the case, it should filter out if I'm careful. I've never seen niter suspended up in the syrup like this before. I hope it's an easy fix. Headache is a good description for this.

Sean

[ForFun]

well, I finally got around to opening all my sealed jars and dumping out my "fuzz in the bottle" syrup to re bottle this past weekend. I want to THANK YOU seclark because that is exactly what I did and my syrup came out crystal clear! I re heated all the syrup in a stock pot that sat inside another stock pot that was filled with water. I heated up to about 190 deg and poured it all through 4 cone prefilters and wool cone filter. I did have to pull out one of the prefilters as it was getting plugged but for the most part, by the time it cooled, it all filtered through except for about a pint which I poured in a separate bottle for our use. I then poured it all back into the stock pot that was sitting in the larger one and re heated again to about 185 deg and began bottling. Like I said....came out crystal clear!

[seclark]

Glad to have helped ForFun,I know it can be very trying getting nice clear syrup in a bottle.I have had to reboil a few times already sealed bottles after I thought I was finished and it really gets to you but after trying someone else's method mentioned on this site it's the only way I will reheat now.Like I said it takes more time but well worth the labor.Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

[SeanD]

I finally got to refiltering and rebottling that weird batch. The suspended fuzz had settled to the bottom and it looked more like niter I'd seen before, although there was a lot of it and some of it formed pretty big flakes. I stirred constantly to cut down on the hot spot. The syrup came out clear and it didn't drop a grade. Thanks for all the feedback.

Sean