Strange film on a sealed bottle ?

[erob]

I opened one of my sealed mason jars of syrup from last season and it looked like this. Strange grey film on the syrup but the rest of the jar is clear. It smells like maple syrup but I haven’t tasted it yet. Anyone else ever experience this ?

[ecolbeck]

Looks like mold. Likely causes include low density syrup or low canning temperatures. I have found that small jars and bottles need to be preheated before canning because they suck a lot of heat out of the syrup resulting in a low canning temperature and moldy syrup.

[maple flats]

Can't see it well enough, but it could be mold or even defoamer. If defoamer, you used too much. Pick it out with a spoon, the feel it between your finger tips, if it feels waxy it's defoamer.

[Ed R]

It's mold. If it's for personal use, I would skim it, bring it to boil and use it. It could just be a bad jar seal.

[Pdiamond]

I have always used mason jars and that happened to me the first year. Skim it all off and heat it up it should be okay to use. What I noticed was that particular jar looked a little short on syrup. those jars I don't store I use first. Always try to fill them within 1/2 inch of the lid and make a quick flip over of the jar then set it up to seal as normal, just like you would be doing a vegetable or fruit.

[BCPP]

Almost certainly mold. Mold colonies generally form in circular patterns like you have because they start with one spore and grow out evenly in all directions until they hit another colony or edge. I agree, that bottle looks a little under filled. Do you invert them after filling? Even using sterilized bottles and lids it's possible for spores to land on them before they get filled. The hot syrop will kill them if it touches them but if you dont invert then any spores on inside of lid or top edge of bottle are free to multiply! For personal use just scrape off the mold, bring syrop back up to more than 180 for 10 minutes and then use.

[erob]

Thanks for the info. Just wanted to make sure if it was still ok to consume

[DrTimPerkins]

Should be fine as long as it is reboiled and refiltered and nobody in the household is sensitive or allergic to mold.