Best Answer cookinmaple, Today, 07:31 PM
We pack Pure Maple Syrup and other products. We fill our bottles by volume (mLs), which allows for a more controlled headspace. I use a volumetric flask to verify the fill levels when filling hot and again when it's cold. This was the best way for us to lower the % of overfills, bad seals and spoilage. We found using density was a little trickier and slowed us down; the mess wasn't worth it.
Cornell Maple calculators are useful.
Grade - FIFSQN
Posted Today, 02:42 PM
This is going to be a deep dive, but I know we have at least 1 maple guy around here. So..
We bottle Maple to 16.0 fluid ounces (most of our other product is by weight). It's worked out that average density of maple syrup being 11.02 lb/gal comes out to 1.4lbs, or 635 grams per bottle. (we do 634g, I'm assuming to adjust for overfill issues in the past).
My issue is that FREQUENTLY this still causes over fills, maple gushing over the top of the bottles. More research has shown me that the density swings seasonally (looks like spring is slightly higher brix= higher density). This is where my research gets muddy and I can't find any good answers...
How are maple packers adjusting for density? Are you using fill levels instead of weight exclusively? My brix swing is very minimal (spec is 66-68.9°Bx hard stop). I wouldn't think that would be enough to over fill jugs and I can't find a correlation to high brix and overfill (although I have very minimal data, this is an issue processing recently alerted me to).
Hoping a maple gal/guy has some insight. I can't keep going out there and licking up all the spilled delicious warm maple even if I want to (guys it smells so good in the plant when we're running maple you don't even want to know).
Grade - PIFSQN
Posted Today, 03:13 PM
Not a maple guy. You need either bigger bottles or go by fills in oz.
Do you sell by ounce or by lb?
Grade - FIFSQN
Posted Today, 03:22 PM
Not a maple guy. You need either bigger bottles or go by fills in oz.
Do you sell by ounce or by lb?
We label the maple for sale by 16 fluid ounces. The bottle will hold 16 fluid ounces easily so that's not the issue. They are opaque bottles and we use weight to adjust fill levels.
Grade - PIFSQN
Posted Today, 03:41 PM
How do you know what weight (in gm or lb) will make 16 fl oz? Do you guys do hourly fill checks or something? Are you able to adjust scale parameters?
Grade - FIFSQN
Posted Today, 03:44 PM
Daft question, why not measure your density for each run? Then your addition and weight control can be converted to volume. And you'd probably save a fortune.
If you have a lab or office on site you can use a pycnometer or there are various other methods.
What Are The Density Measurement Instrument in Lab - Drawell
************************************************
25 years in food. And it never gets easier.
Grade - FIFSQN
Posted Today, 03:53 PM
Daft question, why not measure your density for each run? Then your addition and weight control can be converted to volume. And you'd probably save a fortune.
If you have a lab or office on site you can use a pycnometer or there are various other methods.
What Are The Density Measurement Instrument in Lab - Drawell
Not daft at all, that might be what the previous director would occasionally do. The assistant shift supervisor claimed the previous director would come out and give them a target weight on occasion. I'm guessing it was when he found density shifted enough that he needed to.
Hoping to work out some type of brix/density correlation or figure out how he was measuring density and go from there. I am absolutely not a food scientist though and my research has seemed to hit a wall.
Grade - FIFSQN
Posted Today, 03:56 PM
How do you know what weight (in gm or lb) will make 16 fl oz? Do you guys do hourly fill checks or something? Are you able to adjust scale parameters?
The weight was worked out previously. I did find in my research that it was accurate though. I have used a site in the past that has some density/fill conversions and it had maple listed, which matched up exactly with what we were already doing:
Liquid Volume to Weight Calculator | Convert Gallons to Pounds
Grade - PIFSQN
Posted Today, 03:58 PM
I don't know anything about syrup either, other than the kind Buddy the Elf drinks in the mailroom. Is it required to do it in FL Oz? Why not just do it by weight instead of volume and be done with the issue forever?
Edit: Nevermind, just Googled and got my answer for that.....
Edited by MDaleDDF, Today, 03:59 PM.
Grade - PIFSQN
Posted Today, 03:59 PM
Of course that info is available online. But not density of every batch or seasonal maple as you say they vary.
Fellow
Posted Today, 04:09 PM
Maybe some thing below will help
looks like the easiest solution is measuring density PRIOR to bottling / batch
https://ppaq.ca/app/...AN_2023_E02.pdf
https://mapleresearc...gsyruppart2.pdf
Please stop referring to me as Sir/sirs
Grade - FIFSQN
Posted Today, 04:21 PM
Maybe some thing below will help
looks like the easiest solution is measuring density PRIOR to bottling / batch
https://ppaq.ca/app/...AN_2023_E02.pdf
https://mapleresearc...gsyruppart2.pdf
Yeah, that second one looks promising I'll go over it in full when I get a second.
Who'd have guessed a Canadian would have all the cool maple links. 
Grade - MIFSQN
Posted Today, 07:31 PM Best Answer
We pack Pure Maple Syrup and other products. We fill our bottles by volume (mLs), which allows for a more controlled headspace. I use a volumetric flask to verify the fill levels when filling hot and again when it's cold. This was the best way for us to lower the % of overfills, bad seals and spoilage. We found using density was a little trickier and slowed us down; the mess wasn't worth it.
Cornell Maple calculators are useful.
Grade - FIFSQN
Posted Today, 08:33 PM
We pack Pure Maple Syrup and other products. We fill our bottles by volume (mLs), which allows for a more controlled headspace. I use a volumetric flask to verify the fill levels when filling hot and again when it's cold. This was the best way for us to lower the % of overfills, bad seals and spoilage. We found using density was a little trickier and slowed us down; the mess wasn't worth it.
Cornell Maple calculators are useful.
This is what I ultimately decided to do, so I'm glad to read this. They're going to weigh exactly 16 fluid ounces of the hot maple being used right before setting fill weights and use that weight for that run.
Seems like almost too simple of a fix but I can't see why that wouldn't work.
Edit: I also find it hard to believe that this small of a brix change can make this big of a deal on fill levels, but we'll see...
Edited by TimG, Today, 08:35 PM.
Grade - SIFSQN
Posted Today, 08:41 PM
Are you sure the viscosity of the maple syrup isn't causing any issues while filling?
Are you sure there are no air bubbles causing overfilling?
How many percent of the bottle are you filling in the ideal situation?
Also, what sort of filling system are you using? How does the system know it dispensed the right amount of syrup?
If the fill system is somehow affected by flow, you could still run into issues.
That said, I think that verifying the density and fill level prior to each production run is something you obviously need to implement first.
0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users
