Hydrotherm

[LisaJ]

Hi, I'm brand new to the forum, but not new to syrup making. We've been making it on and off for about 30 years--nothing very big, about 150 taps. My questions have to do with Hydrotherms. We used an old hydrometer for years, and lately I have been worried that it might be not registering correctly, so I asked a big syrup producer what instrument he used and he said a hydrotherm. I bought one from him (got no instructions with it), but the weird thing is when I went to use it to decide when to draw off, it wanted to sink to the bottom of the hydrometer cup. I finally had to let go of it (or burn my fingers) and it sank to the bottom. Question 1 is why did it do that? Did I test too early for it to register? The second question is about the description of hydrotherms in general--here's an ad:
Hydrotherm 2000
Combination of an hydrometer and a thermometer.
Will give you reading between 35° F and 210° F
Precalibrated at 65.8 Brix.
Question 2 is, if it only gives readings up to 210° F, how can you use that to know when to draw off--syrup isn't done at that temperature. What am I missing? Did I get the wrong kind of hydrotherm? What is a good model to get?

[KenWP]

When you take syrup off the evaporator its going to cool very quick thats why its at 210 degrees. You would need a electric syrup cup in order for it to keep the temp up to 217o r 219 degrees once it hits the cup. Remember your cups cold compared to the syrup so will cool it right away.

[powerdub]

I use a hydrometer to check density to know when to draw. We batch filter three gallons at a time and that is when we use the hydrotherm. At that point the syrup is down to between 160 and 180 depending on how fast we are drawing off. With the hydrotherm you don't have to check it against the thermometer and then figure out the chart. If it sank to the bottom the syrup was either too hot or too thin.

[tuckermtn]

not to hijack the thread, but powerdub- how is your season going?