LOLOL don't worry everyone, if I had turned the camera 180 degrees you'd see our shop is a mess as well, I simply took a shot of the one and only "good side".

Al, that's so awesome about you acquiring a structure for your sugar shack, that does make for a really great day, send pics when it's complete,!

Galena, been reading back through a couple of your posts about you finishing at higher temp readings then is "typical" and you wondering about if the on/off cycles ofyour glass top stove has something to do with it.
We also run a glass top induction stove and understand what you mean about the very quick upi and down cycles of heat when you're on any setting but high.

Last year was our first year ever trying maple syrup production, so we had no idea what to expect (not that we're much further along now but you know what I mean).
We read "Back Yard Sugarin' " at 20 times, esp. the section on finishing, we felt like we had a decent handle on what to do, knowing though that reading and doing are two very different things.
Come time to finish, we also noticed that the candy thermometer reading at about 219 (callibrated that day in boiling water) seemed way too early.
But, being newbies we pulled that batch off at about that temp........it turned out way too thin.

A few days later we tried making another batch, again at 219 it seemed too thin so we decided to go old school and let it cook some more and try to read the state by the dripping off the spoon method.
Well, being a bit leary about how thin our first batch turned out, and not having enough experience to read via the drip method, we left it a tad too long and it came out thick.
Anyhow, long story short, keeping in mind we're still very new at this, we'd be inclined to believe what you're saying about glass top stoves and how quickly the cycle, possibly throwing off temperature readings.

This year, our new rig has a nice CDL probe and since everything is fired by wood heat, we're truly hoping for predictable results (ah the naive nature of newbies LOL)!
Boiling this morning after getting the monkeys to school!
Cheers all