Saving messed-up maple cream

[adamhenne]

So, my team and I got in over our heads with an extra-large batch of maple cream the other day. First half of the batch went just fine, but the second half hadn't cooled down enough yet when we reached the end of our work day. We took a chance and put it in the fridge overnight to try again the next day. On coming back to work, we brought it back up to room temperature and started it through the cream machine. Something clearly wasn't right -- the room-temp syrup was too thick and taffy-like. Once the machine started agitating it, it turned color and set up very quickly, enough that the motor seized up and shut off. So once we got everything cleaned out, we were left with three bricks of very hard maple candy and half-a-pot full of dark, thickened syrup. I assume getting sloppy with the temperatures caused our problem, but I'm wondering how we might salvage the materials. Is all that crystallization reversible -- as in, can we melt that candy back down, thin the syrup, and start over? I'm pretty new at all of this so any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[n8hutch]

You should be able to add water, some people use distilled water to avoid the minerals in normal household water.
Boil it back down to something that you can use, may not make cream , but should be fine to make maple sugar with, or you could filter it and just have a Darker Grade syrup.

Your going to want to heat it/stir it somewhat slow at first until it slurrys up again. So as to avoid burning it.

[maple flats]

That's the beauty of maple, the sugar as long as nothing got into it that should not be there, the sugar is not ruined. Thin it back and make something great with it.

[unc23win]

I always have syrup on hand to add. I have had mine clog up the machine before. Cleaned it all out put it in a bowl then added it back in while adding syrup a little at a time. Made perfect cream. I would avoid adding water.

[maplwrks]

Jared nailed it, do not use water. mix in some fresh syrup and slowly bring it back to the temp you want for cream. Start over.

[n8hutch]

I Get the Add Syrup thing, Do it all the time when my cream sets up more than I expected. But when I hear " Bricks" I think that is beyond just adding Syrup. But maybe not.