How can sugar and water go bad?
I make my own syrup. It consists of brown sugar, white sugar, maple flavoring and water. When the kids were little we went through it so fast I was making a new batch every 3 weeks.
However, since it’s just Rick and me, the batches sit for months and months.
The last couple times I’ve gotten into a premade batch, it’s gone “bad.” From now on I’ll just make what we need as we go, but I don’t understand how sugar and water can go bad.
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There are a couple of ways. Remember that rum is essentially made from sugar and water that have “gone bad”. Cane syrup that gets inoculated by yeasts (and there are wild yeasts everywhere) will serve as food for the yeast. The yeast converts the syrup into alcohol and CO2. If you distil the resulting product, you’ll get white rum.
The other thing that can spoil your syrup is mold. Mold is pretty tolerant of sugar, so it will grow on a syrup too sweet to support bacteria or even yeasts.
Keeping the sugar concentration high enough will discourage yeast fermentation. If you like it less sweet for eating, you can always dilute it a little before using. Mold is harder to prevent, but keeping it refrigerated will help.
Um lady, haven’t you had real maple syrup?
Not that I know of. That’s just how my mom made it so that’s how I make it. It’s what I’m used to and I like it.
Once my cousin came down from Washington State, where my mom’s family is from. I made him pancakes for breakfast.
He took a bite and said, “Good home made syrup!”
I wondered how he knew, then it hit me….those are the kinds of things family has in common! Gramma must have made it, too!
All my family lived up there. Mom and Dad and we three kids only had ourselves in Kansas, no cousins, nothing.
OMG. We have to change that. It’s not cheap, but it’s the nectar of the Gods. Let me look at shipping options.
I didn’t know people made homemade syrup like that. Can you give me the recipe?
@Adirondackwannabe I can’t tell you how many people I know who don’t know there is a difference between maple syrup and the pancake syrups sold like Log Cabin and Aunt Jemima. I don’t mean like the OP who has never had maple syrup, that’s simply she hasn’t tried it, I mean people who don’t know there is real maple syrup drummed from the trees or they think their pancake syrup made with corn syrup actually is maple syrup.
@JLeslie Well I’ll be taking care of that this week. FedEx ships there.
I like the medium amber. I think people accustomed to sugar probably would prefer it too. A small bottle of medium and a small of dark would be great for her to try both if you have a local maple store. It’s hard to find in the supermarkets the smaller plastic bottles good for shipping where I live. It’s actually impossible.
I have sugar maple trees here. I used to bring gallons of the raw, filtered sap into work so people could make tea with it or sweeten coffee. It takes about 35 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup. That is a lot of energy. I’d cook it on the stove in the house with a fan blowing so the heat and humidity would not be wasted. Then I learned about condensation and how sweet loving ants are attracted to it so I stopped. Now, if I have time or the inclination, I just collect and filter a few gallons and keep it in the refrigerator for tea.
Oh, I read Little House on the Prairie @JLeslie! I know real maple syrup comes from maple trees, and I know people tap into the sap. I’ve just never been actually introduced to real maple syrup.
I imagine Gramma made it the way she did because it was the very cheapest way. They were dirt poor.
Here is my recipe:
1 c granulated sugar
1 c brown sugar
1 cap maple flaver
1 cup water.
Cook until sugars are dissolved.
Complicated, ain’t it!
@Dutchess_III Describe how you know it’s “bad”. Appearance? Smell? Taste?
My husband told me. After he’d poured on on his pancakes. It had big chunks of mold in it.
I know that in the past I’ve opened up the syrup and it looked like it was moldy or something.
It may just be the sugar crystallizing out of solution. If the chunks are hard, that’s what it is. If so, then you could just add a little water and cook it to redissolve the sugar.
No. I know what crystallizing sugar looks like! That’s not what it was.
@Dutchess_III I am excited that you are about to try maple syrup for the first time – please come back and let us know what you think.
@Dutchess_III The syrup is here!!!!!!!! My client brought it in today. Laughs, :):) I hope you have some friends that want to try it. He brought a quart. I’ll ship it tomorrow.
I’m so excited about the syrup! LOL. I’m serious. Such a nice jelly thing to do.
Sorry it took me a bit. We’re fighting the weather big time this year. It’s good stuff to cook with too. I just thought of my mother’s maple frosting. I’ll get you the recipe. Maybe I should this to Kardamon for more ideas.
@Adirondackwannabe Frosting is a good idea, because there’s nothing wrestling with the maple, so it’s flavour comes through well. But in a lot of cases, recipes that call for maple syrup might as well contain sugar or honey instead, for all the difference it makes.
I’d advise @Dutchess_III just to drown her pancakes and French toast in it to get the full effect. :)
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