When you’re making maple syrup (or black walnut!), it takes hours of boiling before you arrive at your finished product. Today I’ve spent the entire day boiling. After that monotony, it’s easy to get complacent and not check your pans as often as you should.
It’s important to check the temperature and consistency of your syrup often, especially towards the end of your boil. At that stage, the sap can go from syrup to hard candy to burnt past usability within minutes.
This evening I was distracted with some administrative things and when I went to check my pans, the black walnut syrup was much thicker than it should be.
I pulled the pan off the heat, checked the flavor to make sure it wasn’t burnt, and determined it could still be saved! There are a few things that can be done at this point.
What I feel is easiest to do (and what I ended up doing) is to simply add a bit of water to it, stir well, return to a boil and check the temperature to make sure it gets to 219 F so that it is the correct consistency and safe for long term storage. This will fix the overcooked sap into the syrup you were originally aiming for.
The next option is to turn it into hard candy. The concentrated sap should be brought to but not above 235 F. Once it’s reached that temperature, pour it into a separate bowl to cool for 10 minutes. While you wait on that, line a baking sheet with parchment paper or alternatively you could grease the baking sheet. Then slowly pour the molten candy on to the prepared baking sheet. Allow to cool completely, usually about 1 hour. You can then break it into smaller bite sized pieces.
If you’re up for a bit more work and/or your mixture had exceeded the 235 F, then this next option may be what you’re looking for. You can turn your overboiled maple syrup into granulated maple sugar. The mixture will need to be brought to 262 F, I recommend utilizing a candy thermometer to keep track of the temperature. Once it’s reached 262 F, remove the pan from the stove and turn it off. Allow the mixture to cool to about 200 F, then grab a big spoon and start hand mixing it. This will take some effort and would likely be too much work for a home stand mixer. You will need to stir for about 10-15 minutes until the mixture crystalizes, and becomes dry and light in appearance. Once it has crystalized, you can pass it through a stainless steel sieve to have uniform crystals. Once it has cooled, pass it through a sieve again before storing it in an airtight container.
I hope that this can help out other busy homesteaders like myself!