I opened a bottle recently of this years product and lo and behold, the dreaded crystals had formed, not in all bottles but at least one so far. This is our 1st year of production and although I have been lurking on this site for years, it is obvious I have much to learn.

We have a waterloo small evaporator with a front finishing pan with three dividers and the drawoff located at the very front. As others have stated, I note that the divider closest to the flue (lets call it the flue divider) pan runs the hottest and I did have trouble establishing a gradient on the evaporator - seemed I was batch boiling, with long periods of boiling with no draws. At times, when we did have a draw, the temp would escalate quickly, well above 120+ notably when the syrup from the flue divider rolled around.

We have a steam bottler and try to regulate the temperature as we bottle at 185 degrees.

My question is this: Knowing that bottling above 185 degrees can cause crystals, did overheating in the finishing pan take precedence and cause the crystals? A 2nd thought is that the steam bottler should have been stirred? Perhaps the bottom overheated?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Paul Rodman