When are you guys tapping? I want to come up and see your pans in action. I came close to buying a set this year.
When are you guys tapping? I want to come up and see your pans in action. I came close to buying a set this year.
30x40 Sugarhouse
975 taps here at home. Still have 3-400 to add in.
3x10 Cabin by the Creek evap with "steamaway"
CDL 600 RO
ebayed Sogevac S65
Looks like valentines day. Michelle will be doing the boiling on the weekends monday we both work and I will do the rest of the boiling tuesday thru friday. Your welcome to stop by any time. Keith
Keith & Michelle
Still Seeking Farm, LLC
4120 4x4 John Deere
2x6 Max Flue with Revalution syrup pan
349 taps on vac
19 on gravity
2 sap hounds
Hey guys, I don't mean to rain on your parade, but you are hijacking a thread that is supposed to be about candy with white holes.
Randy
Toad Hill Maple Farm
http://ToadHillMaple.com/
3650 Taps on Vacuum for 2010 & still expanding
56'x64' Timberframe Sugarhouse - New for 2011
3x10 Leader Vortex w/ Max Flue Pan & SteamAway
1000 gph Leader Springtech RO
777 Acres in the Adirondack Mountains
A year later. Still no answers. Any luck on the white candy face dilemma?
Make sure you check out our YouTube Channel.
https://www.youtube.com/bissellmaplefarm
www.bissellmaplefarm.com
Still same problem and no answers
Randy
Toad Hill Maple Farm
http://ToadHillMaple.com/
3650 Taps on Vacuum for 2010 & still expanding
56'x64' Timberframe Sugarhouse - New for 2011
3x10 Leader Vortex w/ Max Flue Pan & SteamAway
1000 gph Leader Springtech RO
777 Acres in the Adirondack Mountains
I'm not sure I can help but maybe give you a couple of things to consider. We make a fair amount of candy and have had the same trouble on occasion. My wife and I are in disagreement on what causes it. I say syrup was cooked to high my wife says it stirred in the trough to long. I take my candy to 29 degrees above boiling point of water and my wife doesn't keep much syrup in the trough running it thru fairly quickly. Not sure what caused the problem but we no longer have a issue with white spots.
upsmapleman,
By only going to 29 degrees is your candy very soft? I have always understood that you should run the minimum amount of syrup in the trough. Should be just enough to cover the auger. Does that sound right?
Thanks,
Randy
Toad Hill Maple Farm
http://ToadHillMaple.com/
3650 Taps on Vacuum for 2010 & still expanding
56'x64' Timberframe Sugarhouse - New for 2011
3x10 Leader Vortex w/ Max Flue Pan & SteamAway
1000 gph Leader Springtech RO
777 Acres in the Adirondack Mountains
Our candy is soft but it pops right out of the mold. Its to soft if it does not pop out of the mold. We try to just keep the bottom covered and when it sheets it will pull up on the auger and then we pour it. We do 12 to 15 # to a batch.
White spots you say.... there are a number of variables that can cause this phenomenom. The first is your invert sugar could be a little off for candy making. Also each batch of syrup will have a different invert sugar level. Why is this important? Invert sugar directly effects how much you have to boil the syrup for your candy. The higher the invert sugar the higher you must boil your syrup. Second is the candy is boiled too hard. Have you noticed that your white candy is harder than the rest of your candy???? If so then this candy has been boiled hard than other batches. Over boiling can go right back to invert sugar, but barometric pressure outside and relative humidity in the house also play a significant role in the end boiling point. A third reason for the white is that the candy may not have been mixed evenly or different sections of the candy cooled at different rates. This would cause light and dark spots in the candy. Actually if you enter any candy competitions they should have a section that the judges assess the color of your candy, and if there are light spots in the candy. How do you prevent this from happening???? Well I wish I could tell you an easy fix, but there isn't one. But good for you there is a fix if you are willing to put in the time and dedication. I too had this problenm at one time and now I have pretty much eliminated it. This is what I do. Each batch of syrup from the sugar shanty I test the invert sugar level and mark it right on the drum of syrup so I know what it is just at a glance. This can be done gallon by gallon also. Then I started a chart. I noted the barometric pressure, if it was rising or falling, the invert of the syrup, the grade of syrup, the temp I boiled the syrup too, the temp I started mixing, and the time I took to mix a batch. Now this does take time and dedication, but if you can stick to this routine you'll start noticing a pattern. So I know if the barometiric pressure is 29.5 and rising, my syrup invert is 20, and it's sunny outside I'm boiling to 241.5 letting cool to 171 then stirring for my candy. Now I don't use a machine so it may different for you if you use a machine.....mainly the cooling. I hoping this helps you out.
Jake Moser
Moser's Maple
758 lbs of Molded maple candy last year all done by hand
over 400 lbs sold on ebay (mosersmaple1904)
Award winning Maple Confections
2012 World Maple Festival Grand Champion Maple Syrup
Jake,
You say that the invert level and a bunch of other factors influence the formation of the white spots. We have always used low invert syrup that is well within the ranges specified in the maple confections manual put out by Cornell. What invert levels have you found to be a problem? Other than boiling point, what effect have you found from the changing barometric pressures? We are using a candy machine with an auger so I'm pretty confident that mixing isn't the problem, although at times we are guilty of letting the trough run out of syrup and other times we may flood it to deep. I like your suggestions about keeping track of all of the details of each batch to look for common threads that create a problem. I may take it a step further and number our molds so that as we make a batch we can record which molds came out when the trough was flooded or when it ran dry. We will start recording things this year.
Thanks for your help,
Randy
Toad Hill Maple Farm
http://ToadHillMaple.com/
3650 Taps on Vacuum for 2010 & still expanding
56'x64' Timberframe Sugarhouse - New for 2011
3x10 Leader Vortex w/ Max Flue Pan & SteamAway
1000 gph Leader Springtech RO
777 Acres in the Adirondack Mountains