Hard candy packaging

[Albert gravlin]

I made my first batch of hard maple candies today. I am happy with how they came out. I have seen them packaged in individually. Can some tell me how this this is done, what kind of machine and where to find one? Thanks for any help.

[Moser's Maple]

are you referring to the hard candy known as maple drops, or referring to molded maple sugar candy?????? what kind of mold did you use, and I'll know what candy your talking about.....rubber or hard plastic with the lack of better terminology

[Albert gravlin]

I am talking about the maple drops. I used the rubber mold it is all I have right now.

[Moser's Maple]

Albert,
you're talking about the molded maple sugar candy
maple drops are like maple suckers and would melt the rubber mold since they are heated between 280-300 degrees, but anyways I know what candy you have made. First let me congratulate you on a successful batch of candy. You can now start get a bigger return per gallon of syrup. there may be a machine out there to package individual candies, but I'm sure it could be pretty expensive. if some one else knows of one you can chime in for me. what we do when individually wrapping is we have celaphane (sp) bags that we place them in. my mother used to just roll the ends and staple it shut, my wife and I still use the same kind of bags but instead of stapling, we used my food saver and set to the seal setting and heat seal the ends. we feel this is a more professional looking way. I know some producers use what could be best called a small ziploc plastic bag, but we have never had much luck with plastic bags, it seems to make our candies wilt and melt. I hope this was helpful

[wiam]

My daughter has made hard maple candies in my rubber molds with no problems. Have you melted molds with these? She put 3-4 in a small ziplock bag

[Moser's Maple]

yeah, the first time we were playing around with hard sucker candy we put some in a rubber mold. had 3 learned lessons.
1. rubber molds are not ment for 290-300 degree candy
2. we warped our molds permently (good thing these were not a very fequently used mold)
3. the candy had a terrible rubber taste when taken out.

they make a hard candy mold specifically for hard sucker candy. don't forget you have to spray your molds with pam, or cooking spray, wipe out extra, and pour directly into mold. they do make a machine to individually wrap like the hard maple drops you see on ebay, or some producers sell that are bought form canada, but the machine is expensive.....can't remember price off hand, but it cost way more than a cream machine, candy machine, and a vacuum bottler put together. get the idea how expensive it is.