reheating gallon bottles

[thomashansen871]

i have 5 one gallon bottles of finished syrup. i want to put it into a 5 gallon whiskey barrel, i am wondering what would be the best way to reheat the bottles, i was thinking of heating them one at a time in a water bath, boiling water, and then pouring them into the barrel. or should i use my canner to heat all 5 gallons of syrup?

[nymapleguy607]

Make your life easy and heat it all at once in the canner. Just dont heat to boiling.

[maple flats]

All at once in the canner, heat it to 190 F and dump it into the barrel.
I make a lot of bourbon barrel aged syrup, I only one (my first) did a 5 gal barrel, it took about 3 mos to get a perfect balance of maple vs bourbon flavor. Then I did 3 or 4 10 gal barrels, about 6 months, then a couple of 15 gal barrels, about 7.5 months, then 20 gal, about 9 months and more recently 30 gal 12 months. The reason larger ones take longer is because the amount of syrup per sq inch of barrel changes significantly.
Good luck. If you're selling it, I heat it to 195-200 and then filter it, and wait a day , letting it cool, then I heat it again to 185 and hold it there at least 16 hrs to evaporate off alcohol. My credit care processor made me get it tested to prove I didn't need an alcohol lecense to sell it. That was done by Merle Maple, in NYS, it came back at 0.6%, my labels only say "less than 2%" They charged $20 for the test about 8 months ago, I don't know if that has gone up since.

[DRoseum]

Can you fit all 5 bottles in your canner when filled with water? If so, best of both worlds.