Last sap boil. After taste?

I collected the last of my sap on Tues. Only about 30gals but we are just micro producers. We boil at the cabin 2hrs from our house and finish it on propane at home. The weather had gotten warm so I figured the sap would be bad. It was alittle cloudy but not bad and had no odor to it so I decided to boil it. Part of the way through I tasted it and it had an after taste to it. I brought it home and started to finish it. I judge how close I am by how it is foaming up and then start checking with a hydrometer. The syrup was becoming thicker than I have ever had but would not reach the hot line on the hydrometer. I had visions of a jar of crystals so we pulled it and filtered it. Gravity with 2 prefilters and 1 orlon. The syrup was so thick it would hardly go through. The filters were hot and damp. We checked the temp after filtering and it was only 125deg. It does still have an after taste. But it has also thinned down. We are going to try some for cooking. Guess I should have just dumped it in hindsight. But had to see what would happen. Just confused about the thickness. Sorry about the length of this.

Perhaps your hydrometer paper could have come loose in transit? Do you have a spare to compare with a cold test?

I have the container that I store it in marked just for that reason and the paper has not moved. I do have another one also. I have thought about reheating it and see what happens.

We had a similar experience about 10 days ago. Sap was slightly cloudy but the collection had been preceded by warm weather. We had emptied all collection barrels before the sap run to prevent collecting "old" sap. When we started processing it, it didn't have the normal maple smell and was not boiling as it normally did. We tasted it and it had a caramel flavor so we dumped what we had already pulled off as well as the remainder of the 500 gallons we hadn't processed. We concluded it was the end of the season for us and began our equipment cleanup.
Gary

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mdm1

The syrup was becoming thicker than I have ever had but would not reach the hot line on the hydrometer.

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This sounds like ropey (stringy). Off-flavor could be sour (fermented) or buddy.

Dr. Tim that sounds like exactly what we had. Another learning experience. Thanks for the replies! Mike