Will"chasing" the sweet with water make darker syrup?

[heus]

Finished boiling yesterday and today. Made 4.5 gallons of very falvorful syrup. Problem is it seems darker than it should be for a first run syrup. I ended up putting over 200 gallons of soft water through it and drew off early. I finshed it in a propane finisher today. The syrup has a very pronounced butterscotch or caramel flavor. Not like most other light syrups ive tasted. I also suspect that my new hydrometer is wrong. Is this possible? Seems like I boiled it too long before it reached the hot test line. I calculated yesterday that the boiling temp of syrup was 216.74 so I drew off at between 216 and 217. It never even floated my hydrometer until today on the propane finisher when I had to go all the way up to 220 to reach the red hot test line. So my questions are:
1. Will chasing the sweet make darker syrup?
2. How rare is it to have a faulty syrup hydrometer?

[ebourassa]

Finish syrup will be roughly 219.2f, but depending on the day you could boil to 219-220, last saturday i was boiling at 220.1 but there was a low pressure system here, and today i was drawing at 219.5, i think your hydrometer would be correct, remember finish syrup is 7.2 deg. above boiling temp of water. hope this helps.
Erik

[heus]

At my elevation (1020) and barometric pressure yesterday (29.55 I think) the calculator I used said the boiling point of water was 209.64. Adding 7.1 to this gets me to 216.74.

[KenWP]

At 216 that means your water was boiling at 209 degrees and your not that high up to have that low a boiling temp. Your thermometer might be out. What kind of calculator are you useing by the way.

[KenWP]

I found a calculator online that says water should boil at 205 degrees here. Weird as it usually boils around 210-211.

[heus]

Ken,
http://twoloonscoffee.com/map/boiling_point.php?elevation=850&barometric=29.5&submit=Boil%21
I got it off of someones post here I think.
I have a new hanna digital thermometer that recalibrates every time its turned on

[ebourassa]

I would bring the therm. inside and boil some water on the stove and see what it reads, pretty neat site for the boil compensation, also the hydrometer could be faulty, if you could get your hands on someone else to verify that would be the easiest way. last year i chase my last batch of syrup off with water and it was a little off flavored, this year i am going to try to cahse it with the condensate from my hood.
Erik

[heus]

I tested my thermometer tonight. With the boiling calculator it said water would boil at 210.39. I got a rolling boil at 210 on the thermometer. My wife tried to nuy a hydrometer at Richards in Chardon today and they were out.

[wattwood1]

try Sugarbush Creek Farm- (Jim?) Cermak's place out in Middlefield. He might be able to get you set up. Good luck. Rob

[heus]

Rob,
Funny you mentioned that. My wife left Chardon and went to Middlefield because someone told her there was a maple supplier there. She asked around town and nobody knew of one.

[Haynes Forest Products]

HEUS Chasing the sweet. So you add water to a pan of finished syrup hoping that it wont mix. How did you chase the sweet? Did you dump in quickly into the flue pan and then while it was mixing with the sweetened sap/syrup did you shut the valve before it mixed with the finished syrup in the syrup pan? I think its a bad idea to do what your doing.

[heus]

Haynes,
When I started I had sweet, almost-syrup in the syrup pan and the flue pan was completely filled with previously boiled sap. The soft water was loaded into the head tank (actually almost 200 gallons worth) and fed using the floats just as if I were boiling sap. I do think that the water was mixing. I ended up having an accumulation of niter on the bottom of the syrup pan, but actually not in the channel near the drawoff. The niter was in the channels where I was adding defoamer. I have since read past posts that say to never add defoamer in the middle of the syrup pn because it draws sugar to that point. I think thats why I have burnt tasting syrup, because I was making syrup in these middle channels. The combination of the constant mixing from the flue pan and the defoamer caused me to have off-flavored syrup. Does this sound right? Plus Im not sure my hydrometer is right. i drew off at what I thought was the correct temp but my hydrometer was never even close to the hot test line until continued to heat the syrup 4 degrees over the syrup boiling point. I also think maybe my hydrometer may have had an accumulation of syrup on it that made it read light?

[maple sapper]

Its important to clean the hydrometer each time its used cause the weight of dried syrup or even a coating on the stem will weight it down. Also the temp at which its checked is important. The density is different when cold then hot. There is a chart to read it at any inbetween temp. Im sure its on this board somewhere.

[PerryW]

I never boil water in my evaporator; only sap.

[Haynes Forest Products]

When I defoam my flue pan its foaming in all 3 channels so when I hit the closest one it effects all 3. I can tell by the color that its sweet sap but no syrup. I still dont know why you would want to add water to the mix. I have never added anything but new sap to the pans during the prosess. If you want to shut down or stop cooking for a complete cleaning drain the flue into a barrel and drain the near syrup into a seperate bucket and clean the rig and replace back into the pans and cook. I still dont know why you would "chase the sweet". If its something you need to do then chase it with sap.

[Russell Lampron]

Haynes at the end of the season when you are out of sap do you just dump all of the concentrated sap in the flue pan? I have chased with water before and it does make darker syrup. I don't like to dump sap that is close to 20% sugar so chasing it through with water does get that sugar into the front pan.

At this point in the season I just leave the sweet in the evaporator until the next boil. If I am going to clean or change out the front pan I drain it into 5 gallon buckets then filter it and pour it back into the pan before I start boiling again.

I only add defoamer in the front pan in an emergency. Keeping the flue pan defoamed also keeps my front pan defoamed most of the time. I don't use alot of defoamer either.

[heus]

The reason I attempted to chase with water is that the weather was going to get cold again and I didnt want the sap/syrup sitting in the evaporator for a week or more. Now I see that was a mistake. I should have just left it in there until the next run.

[Haynes Forest Products]

At the end of the season I evap all all I have then I drain the flue into buckets and fill the flue with water well over the running level so its cleaning as I cook down the best dark everyone wants 2 points over crystal making syrup best tasting of the year.

[PerryW]

Many people put a heat source (like a light bulb) in their evaporator during a cold snap.

When a long cold snap is expected, I run my evaporator as low as I dare to the level in the back pan is real shallow. (It takes some practice to do this without a panic situation.) Then I let the pan freeze solid. The flues seem to have enough flex so it hasn't damaged the pan in 20 years.

Got my first 350 gallons sap of the season ready to boil and the evaporator is ready. Gonna check over all my lines this afternoon to make sure there are no problems and fire up the first boil tomorrow.