Why do crystals form in maple syrup

Heat to boiling until the crystals dissolve. It can then be used wherever maple sweetening is desired. The risk of botulism from maple syrup is virtually non-existent and maple syrup is considered safe. Can you get sick from old maple syrup? You have to live it for yourself. If a container of unrefrigerated maple syrup is not checked often, enough mold may grow in the syrup, to ruin the flavor of the syrup.

As explained in the last question, this mold is easily removed and not harmful. But why look for trouble? Storage: Do you need to refrigerate maple syrup once opened? Once the container is open, maple syrup should be refrigerated.

Once in contact with air, mold could develop if the product is not refrigerated. The short answer is technically no, syrup does not expire and you can keep an unopened container of the stuff on your shelf indefinitely. In other words, moldy syrup is still safe to eat—but you have to remove the mold first.

All I see is air bubbles. Can you give me some advice? Thank you. Re: Maple Syrup Project Post by matthewmulanax » Sat Mar 07, pm You have chosen a very good topic to demonstrate some aspects of chemistry and phsical chemistry.

I have a few questions for you - What was your procedure - briefly describe the steps taken in the experiment When boiling the syrup did it become thick slow to run or spread How was the cooling done - with or without ice? Your answers will help us advise you. Matt Mulanax. It had a lot of air bubbles when put on the pans to cool.

Used one pan with ice, one at room temperature, and one at refidgerator temperature. Have tried steps a few times. Thanks for the help. Re: Maple Syrup Project Post by donnahardy2 » Sun Mar 08, pm Hi Kameron, I had not looked at this project idea before, but it's a really great way to learn about saturated solutions. Maple syrup contains a very high concentration of sugar, and if water is removed by boiling, the sugar will be too concentrated to stay in solution.

If the supersaturated sugar solution is cooled rapidly, you should get lots of small crystals, and if it is cooled slowly, then the crystals will be larger. In looking at the experiment, I would have thought it could not fail, but you have shown repeatedly that there is something in your syrup that is inhibiting the crystallization process.

I know this has been frustrating, but you can turn this into an advantage at the science fair. You will actually have a better project because you can find out what happened. Crystals form when the individual sugar molecules bump into each other. If there's something else in the sample, it may get in between the sugar molecules and prevent the formation of the crystals.

Here's what might be causing the problem: 1. Fats and oils could coat the sugar molecules. Try cleaning your pan with lots of hot soapy water and rinse it thoroughly. Don't even let a fingerprint get on the pan and try the experiment again. Acid in the sample. Acids like lemon juice are sometimes added to syrup to keep it from forming crystals, and sometimes maple syrup contains natural acids.

Look at the product label to see if anything was added. Add a small amount of baking soda to some of your maple syrup. If acids are present, you will see bubbles of carbon dioxide form. If the maple syrup doesn't bubble when you add baking soda, then this is probably not the reason for no crystals.

Wrong sugar in the sample. Maple syrup crystallizes because it contains mostly sucrose, which is the same as table sugar. But, I have a theory about self-defrosting refrigerators: they take moisture out of the air in the frig and freezer.

Just look at celery and carrots after a week in the frig!! Or meat left in a freezer longer than a month. I think that moisture is also drawn out of syrup and cream when stored in a self-defrosting frig and freezer for a long period of time. Regular, old fashioned frigs leave moisture in the frozen and refrigerated maple products.

I do tell folks who experience crytals they are pure sugar, you know in their syrup container to put in some boiling water, shake the container until the crystals are loose, dump them out in a strainer, pat dry with paper towel, air dry and store in an interesting glass container. Moral of this lesson: people pay a lot of money for sugar crystals at Niagara Falls!!

Yours are free!! All rights reserved. Fructose and glucose in the maple syrup can inhibit crystallization of the sugar crystals. As a result, you might need to concentrate the syrup even more, to induce the crystallization.

That is, you need to boil it to a higher temperature. That higher temperature does increase the risk of the syrup burning or creating other off flavours. Since maple syrup is a natural product, its composition can vary quite a bit throughout the season, between farms and between batches.

This makes making maple cream more challenging, since every maple syrup might require slightly different temperatures to crystallize properly.

Leaving the maple cream to cool down will cause crystallization to occur. However, the crystals might form in some places and not as much in others. As a result, you can end up with few large crystals, instead of a lot of very small ones. The stirring will break up larger crystals and induce crystal formation of new ones because of the friction.

The mechanism is actually quite similar to the churning of ice cream during which you form small ice crystals. You can add powdered sugar icing sugar to the maple cream.

The small, fine sizes of the sugar will form a starting point for crystals to form on. However, that does increase the amount of fructose and glucose so you might need to boil it to a slightly higher temperature! Simply pour the syrup back into the pot and reheat again, this time to a few degrees C higher than the previous time and start over.

If the opposite happens: you've got too many crystals and it has become too thick, add water, transfer back to the pot and re-heat, this time cooking to a few degrees lower temperature. Canadian sugar institute, Sources of sugar, link. Cornell Maple bulletin by Stephen Childs, Making maple cream, , link. Schmidt, S. Taylor, S.