Hello all,

I know many a backyard sugarer has over-cooked their syrup and I'm not unique in this regard, but I'm trying to find out if trying to fix the screwup will make it worse.

Yesterday we boiled 68 gallons of sap down to about 1.5 gallons of syrup (actually more like 1.15G, because we overcooked it) - we have a two pan cinderblock evaporator setup, and we finish it on the stove in a lobster pot where it's easier to control temp.

Well when we were letting our outside fire die down in order to dump our haul into our pot, we apparently overcooked it. When my wife brought it inside and floated the hydrometer, it was almost to the "cold test" line, which is about 66 brix, as opposed to the normal "hot test" line around 59 brix. My wife asked me if we should add water, and of course i said "no -let's bottle it" - it wasn't overly thick or hard.... yet...

this morning, we had a partial bottle that we put in the fridge overnight, and when we went to pour it, it was *super* thick. Barely pour-able. I'm going to experiment and see if the non-refrigerated bottles are the same, but my basic question is:

give what I've told you about the nature of my screwup: 66 brix vs 59 brix - how crazy an idea is it to try to empty the bottled syrup (it's in 8 and 12oz glass bottles), add water, and re-bottle?

good idea? terrible idea? one of the worst ideas of all time?

many thanks for all of your expertise