Finishing Syrup - Popping And Banging

[wnybassman]

This was touched on in the Western New York thread, but last night while boiling my syrup pan was making some fairly frequent popping noises. While I have had this before, it is normally just upon start-up when everything is warming up. This was doing it the whole time. Now today while finishing in stock pots, the pot was popping and banging and physically bouncing all around on the burner. I poured off that syrup in a clean pot thinking it was settling to the bottom, but it wasn't. I couldn't even get it all the way to a boil without keeping it stirred constantly. Even once boiling it was still quite unsettled!!

What the heck causes this?? I've had it in the past, but never to this degree.

Is it just the pure amount of sugar sand suspended in the syrup? Filtering just under 6 gallons I had an awful lot of sludge, a good half inch deep in the filter. I'd expect this with late season dark stuff, but this is some of the lightest syrup I have ever made, if not the lightest. Really decent tasting as well.

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[littleTapper]

Looking forward to someone who knows about this; the last batch I bottled did the same thing. Made a hell of a racket in the steam tray I use for finishing. Lighter than other batches too.

[Bricklayer]

It's the niter or sugar sand on the bottom of the pan. This happens when it has time to settle to bottom. When heat is added gasses build up under the layer and make a booming noise when it gets up to temp.
I've almost had my pan jump right off the rails because of this.
I drain and filter my sweet from my pan every couple days to stop this.
This will happen also if you leave unfiltered syrup in a pot. The sugar sand will settle on the bottom and the pot will rumble and bang and big bubbles will surface while it's heating up.

[Ed R]

Bricklayer is spot on. This is more of an issue with latter in the year syrup.

[littleTapper]

Hmm...my finishing pan banged like mad after dumping settled nearup in it. Maybe enough niter in it anyways.

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[Ntatar]

Just when I'm thinking I might-sorta-understand what I'm doing... I read a thread like this. LOVE THIS STUFF! Thanks for sharing and the quick responses! Fascinating!

[maplecherry]

I second that Ntatar. We have a new evaporator set up this year and are working through how to best run it-only 5 boils so far this year. Dealer has been helpful with draft and blower settings but were having problems with "hot spots" on the pans and slight burning of the niter. I was discussing the situation with another more experienced sugar maker and thought it was the same cause discussed above. He also asked how much I let the pans foam up as he thought that would be adding to the problem. Because we always boiled on smaller rigs with tall pans we never really addressed foam in the syrup pans but always tried to control it in the flue pan(it didn't take much to mess up gradient in those set ups). Anyways I am looking forward to adjusting how we boil - once we can - on a two week break and probably close to another week away before we have some sap.