Finishing question?

[Aaroncurtis]

First off I just want to say Hi to everyone. I am from Michigan and have been making syrup on and off for 5-6 years. Just a hobby to do with the kids and my experience is quite limited. I ran into a situation I wasn't sure about. I had ordered some maple syrup bottles and they were supposed to arrive over the weekend but they did not. I boiled about 40 gals of sap yesterday and was going to finish it on the stove today when the bottles were supposed to arrive but they never showed up. So my question is how long can the syrup sit before being finished? I just transferred everything from the evaporator into a big stock pot and covered it and put it outside. Should I finish it tonight and just use canning jars or can I wait till the glass syrup bottles arrive (hopefully tomorrow)? Thanks guys!

Aaron

[CampHamp]

Hi Aaron. When you get syrup up to 180 degrees, it kills bacteria and fungi. You'll be fine letting it sit for a week (as long as you got it pretty close to syrup - lack of water in syrup makes it hard for all but a few fungi to colonize) -- but do reheat before bottling. An opened bottle of syrup at room temps lasts more than a couple weeks before mold shows up.

[Aaroncurtis]

Thanks Jamie. Yes it's close to syrup. It was about 215 degrees when I quit boiling last night. I just wasn't sure if it could sit for awhile or if it needed to be finished right away. I didn't want to risk ruining it simply because I was waiting on the bottles. Thanks again!

[Dennis H.]

You should be fine.
When you get the bottles just heat the syrup up to 180-185 and check density and filter and put in bottles.
Are your bottles going to be glass? Or are they plastic?
If they are glass you will want to warm them up before pouring syrup into them. The hot syrup will kill any bacteria in them when the syrup stays above 180 long enough to kill them off, cool glass will suck heat out of the syrup and you may run the risk of having bacteria still in there that was not killed off by the hot syrup.
Now if your bottles are larger, say quarts or bigger, you will have less of problems as there is a large enough volume of syrup to keep heat.

Now if you are bottling on plastic, just pour in the hot syrup and cap.