Snotty syrup

[Woody77]

Last year I had a batch of syrup that was by taste and looks just fine. But when you poured it it was snotty. The syrup would leave streamers like hot mozzarella.
It looked fine going through the filter but the next day was different.
What happened to it. was the sap bad.
I made some into sugar and it was tough to do but the sugar is just fine. The rest went to a friend for sugar in his mash and that tasted just fine.

[RileySugarbush]

Search for ropey syrup here and you will learn all about it. When i have had that problem, it was after a few warm days where I didn't get any sap and the pans sat too long without firing them up to sterilize or draining and refrigerating the sweet.

[Mead Maple]

I was at a friends sugar house last week checking out their operation. I was there before kindling was in the rig. As we were taking some ice off of the sweet in the flue pan, I noticed a bit of a "stringy" type occurrence happening but chocked it up to the ciders we were having.
We started boiling and all of a sudden the flue pan started to foam up like a cotton candy machine! We had to open the doors and poor cold sap in the pan to get it to calm. Went through this phenomenon twice until finally it cooked off and new sap started coming in the sap pan. I was baffled and being my first real year in this had absolutely no answers to offer. We were able to get this all figured out after reading a bunch on the forum. Definitely gets you worried about who came and sabotoged your arch! Especially when you don't know what it actually is haha!:o

[Sugarmaker]

Yep, ropey syrup. Not fun.
Regards,
Chris

[Woody77]

Well for the future is it spoiled or is it ok to use still. I made sugar from it. I wouldn't think you could do anything else but dump it.

[DrTimPerkins]

I wouldn't think you could do anything else but dump it.

You have answered your own question. :)

[Sugarmaker]

Thinking about this, I believe I have had different levels of this problem in its best form with some long strands/ strings off a spoon, to being a big nasty glob. I believe the stringy version, if it has good flavor may be able to be used for some value added product. If you can boil it and it doesn't go to foaming marshmallow, then you might save it. Just my 2 cents.

So I might coin a new phrase for this as "stringy" syrup.

I would assume this is a less sever stage of somewhat spoiled sap or a blend of good and spoiled sap, leading up to "ropey" stage.

In my case I was able to boil stringy syrup, but it was much thicker and had ropey indications when stirred, (brought to 240 F.) Once ingredients were added to make value added products the thickness of the syrup was reduced/ diluted (not noticeable) and the finished product appeared as normal and had good flavor. Maybe I was just lucky?
I have had the other extreme where half of the front pan of the evaporator went to marshmallow as the fire came up and that ropey syrup batch had to be dumped.
Regards,
Chris

[Ed R]

I had a problem with ropey sweet in my evaporator after my first boil in late February. We had 2 weeks of very cold after the first run. I left the evaporator level high so I could put a little fire under it, which I did 2 times but not a third because the level was getting low. I put a 100 watt light bulb under it to keep it from freezing hard. When I went to boil again in March I noticed the ropey sweet ( from the week plus of the light). I decided to go ahead and boil it and went ahead and saved the first 1.5 gallons off the 2x6 to use for value added products. I just opened the .5 gallon and there is nothing wrong with the syrup, right consistency, flavor, not too dark but I'm still making maple mustard and bbq sauce with it. Even though its a pain to drain the 2x6 I'm not going to put a light under the evaporator again.

[DrTimPerkins]

If it is not real bad, you may be able to salvage some of it. One of the big problems with doing that is that you are likely to have a very difficult time getting a good density reading on ropey syrup, so you're never really sure whether it is too thin, too thick, or good.

The other problem trying to continue boiling this stuff is that it is really easy to burn your pans....it's like boiling jello...not really liquid.

[Ed R]

I was really worried about getting it to filter. No problems, it filtered fine. The sweet I boiled down was not really sweet. The jellyness of it went away the closer it got to syrup. It didn't foam up bad either, but you could tell it was not first of the year syrup. It tastes great though, I was really expecting it to have some off flavor.

[Woody77]

Hey it works good in shine. Makes good mash.

[DrTimPerkins]

Hey it works good in shine. Makes good mash.

You sure that product (moonshine) didn’t have any off-flavor? Maybe you should send us some for testing. A gallon or two should be enough. :D

[Trapper2]

You sure that product (moonshine) didn’t have any off-flavor? Maybe you should send us some for testing. A gallon or two should be enough. :D

Dr Tim, I value every post you ever made. But this one is the one I agree with the most that I can relate to.

[GeneralStark]

You sure that product (moonshine) didn’t have any off-flavor? Maybe you should send us some for testing. A gallon or two should be enough. :D

Lol... Here is a related article. https://www.themaplenews.com/story/ewww-make-the-ropy-syrup-go-away/243/

I find it interesting that the problem results from metabolites from a certain bacteria. So, not the bacteria themselves it seems, but products of their metabolism.

And the article also supports my experience with ropey syrup in that: “Float boxes are really a problem,” and I would add that pre-heaters can be a problem as well.

The worst experience I have had with ropey syrup was several years ago after a break in boiling for a couple weeks. Sweet sat in the pans and float boxes and the flue pan float box spoiled and then contaminated the sweet. There may have been some contamination in the pipe between the float box and preheater. Since then I drain the float boxes and wash them out after every boil. I also drain the pre heater into the flue pan while the pan is still boiling as the evap is cooling off. It's a tricky balance not running the pans to low but with forced air I can pretty effectively blow the fire out pretty quick.

[Marvel26]

I woke up to this issue this morning, boiled on Sunday, left the sweet in the pan, nights were frosty but days were warm. When I first started the foam was noticeable but not extraordinary....I continued on all morning fretting as I went. I have been skimming almost constantly but as the morning went on it got better and better.

[ennismaple]

I had it happen a couple years ago. Had just lit the fire and stuck my hand in the flue pan while it was still cold - and came out with a handful of snot! I ran the garden hose into the pan while I let the fire go out, drained the pan and pressure washed it. A couple hours later the pan was clean and I was boiling with fresh concentrate which made good syrup. The contents of the syrup pan were fine - it was the flue pan that turned.

This past Sunday I drained 400 gallons out of one of our sap tanks in the woods but left 20 gallons in the tank that was pretty nasty looking. By the time I'd sloshed it around to clean up the slime it the tank it had gone totally snotty and would barely drain! 15 gallons of clean water later the tank looked like new and the sap coming in was great.