Globs in the bottom of pan

[Ecpizza]

Boiling away, and being a rookie I'm wondering about what looks like globs of snot in the bottom of my pan while boiling. If I stir it up they disappear, but form again in a few minutes.

My boils is not as aggressive as I want.

Is this sugar settling? Some contaminant? Normal? Bad? Good?

[Clinkis]

This is normal. It's just impurities in the sap that are being concentrated during the boiling process. You will usually see a nasty foam form as well. Most people use a wire strainer and just skim it off occasionally. Whatever is left should filter out and the end.

[Ecpizza]

Thanks. I see it settling out now. There's a lot more "sediment" in my second batch today than my first last week.

[optionguru]

I get alot of that as well, I did get quite a bit of sediment (sugar sand) in my bottles last year even after what I thought was good filtering. Everything still tasted great but just looked bad in the bottom of the glass ball jars. This year I switched my filtering and it comes out sediment free every time. I pour off the evaporator through 2 prefilters then bring the sap/syrup into the house to finish on the stove. When it's ready I put 3 prefilters inside of an orlon cone filter and pour the syrup through that. Comes out nice and clear. Got a 12 pack of prefilters and an orlon filter for about $25, well worth it.

[Cabin]

Boiling away, and being a rookie I'm wondering about what looks like globs of snot in the bottom of my pan while boiling. If I stir it up they disappear, but form again in a few minutes.

My boils is not as aggressive as I want.

Is this sugar settling? Some contaminant? Normal? Bad? Good?

"globs of snot" Don't let the maple syrup marketing people hear you say that!!:lol: