Failed Sugar Attempt

[Urban Sugarmaker]

I was making some granulated sugar this morning with amber rich syrup I had left over from 2015. I have made sugar before with good results but this time I wound up with clumpy, pasty sugar. It was more like dry, crumbly, clumpy cookie dough than granulated sugar.

Then, I decided to make another attempt with dark syrup I made in Feb. 2016. I cooked it to about 258F and stirred right away. It came out beautiful. The best batch I have ever made.

So what went wrong in the failed batch? I cooked that batch by accident to 265F and let it cool to about 200F, then stirred.