My fondant won't set

[Koala John]

Hi,
I'm at my wits end trying to make fondant. I've invested several hours following this recipe:

Use 1 part water to 4 parts granulated sugar.
Add 1/4 tsp. per vinegar per pound of sugar.
Bring to boil, stirring constantly until boiling commences.
Boil without stirring for 3 minutes, covered.
Insert thermometer, and boil uncovered until 234F is reached.
Remove from heat, and allow to cool to 200F.
Whip with whisk until whiteness occurs.
Pour (QUICKLY!) onto waxed paper having a towel beneath.
Allow to cool undisturbed.
Remove waxed paper, and store each cake in a plastic bag.

And it's not working for me! I've tried variations from various places - higher temps, longer heating, not cooling before pouring into mould, not whisking after cooling. I've just had my fourth attempt and it looks like another runny mess that will not set and would drown more bees than it will feed. I want a hard candy board. What am I doing wrong? Anyone have any tips please?
Thanks,
John the awful cook.

[Hopeful]

I think you have too much water to begin with. I use about 1 quart to 15 lbs of sugar.It should be  hard to stir and really thick before it heats. It also needs to cool down to at least 180 before "whisking". I just waited for the 180 and then stirred up all  the solids from the bottom. It has the consistency of ,oh , hot sticky applesauce, I guess. It should be hard to stir with a lot of thick sugary candy at the bottom of the pan. I poured mine into "candy boards". It took a couple of hours to set up after that. Sometimes much longer. I am not sure what the difference was between the ones that set right and the ones that didn't. Temperamental stuff.

[KONASDAD]

I use Robos recipe from his site. Basically, 25lbs sugar, 2qrts water w/ 6 TBS of vinegar. Heat to aprox 260F while adding sugar gardually. Be patient, it will take a long time. Last year I hetaed to 275F and it was rock candy, but the bees ate it. This year I heated to 255F and its a little chalky(hard, dried icing), but bees are all over it as i added it this week. Be very careful of hot syrup. I also used disposable "pot-pie" pans and they worked great. Each cake of candy is about 1/2 lbs and fits very nicely in my Honeyrun apiary vented all season cover. I really like this set-up so far and will do all of my hives w/ this set-up for next winter. For five hives I cut recipe in half and it is still too much so far. I froze left over. It made 15 Pot-pie pans worth.

[Dick Allen]

Use 1 part water to 4 parts granulated sugar.

Insert thermometer, and boil uncovered until 234F is reached.

You need 5 parts of sugar. The easy to remember method is the 1 -234 -5 procedure. 1 part water, with 5 parts sugar, heated to 234º F. 

Also, FYI, vinegar (and cream of tartar) has been reported to be detrimental to bees. While it’s use is mentioned in some of the beekeeping literature and many beekeepers use it, and it probably will  go unnoticed by you, researcher Leslie Bailey does point that out in his book: “’Honey Bee Pathology” saying it shortens the lives of bees when compared with plain sugar. Dianna Sammataro also cautions against using it in her book: “The Beekeeper’s Handbook”.

[Frantz]

Also remember to adjust your final temp for elevation. I am in the Rocky Mountains about 6000ft and I have had to adjust the final temp quite a bit to get it right. I use Robo's recipe as well. It has worked for me, takes some practice though. But his 25lb recipe works well for one sugar board. I also found the beet sugars at Walmart very inexpensive..
Good luck,

[Bee-Bop]

Watch your wife make you some FUDGE, same principle just tastes better.

A Tip;
After the temperature is correct, take a spoon and drop a drip in a cold glass of water the syrup should form a  ball with a streamer attached , { it's more like a teardrop }.

Practice makeing Fudge !!!

Then invite Me over to lick the pan !!   :-P

[CBEE]

By the subject it sounds like you are haveing a bad hair day :mrgreen: :-D
Just struck me funny  :-D

[Koala John]

It was just like a bad hair day, except it lasted for a week - arrrgh!!!   :mrgreen:

Thanks everyone, that's done the trick. Fifth time lucky! Looks like the problem was the ratio of sugar to water. I had tried 4 to 1 as many recipes stated, and also 5 to 1, both resulted in a runny mess. Robos recipe of 6 to 1 resulted in exactly what I was after - something that is solid without being like a rock. I'm expecting this will be very easy to handle whilst lowering the chances of robbing.

Thanks again everyone, I'm a relieved and happy man!

[Michael Bush]

The thing is, the sugar:water ratio is set by the temperature.  In other words, you can't get the temperature right until the water ratio is right.  What that means is, if you get too much water, you either have to add some sugar or cook it long enough to evaporate the excess water.  Either way you won't get it up to that temperature until the water ratio is right.  And, yes, if you live up high (I used to live at 7200 in Laramie) it will change all of that as water no longer boils at 212 F that high so adjustments are necessary.  I would just use the old fashion soft ball, hard ball test.  Dribble a little of the hot syrup into cold water and see what happens.  If it just dissapates, you're not in the ball park.  If it makes a small soft ball, then you're at the "soft ball" stage.  If it makes a hard ball then you're at the "hard ball" stage.  If it makes a hard ball that when you try to break it it cracks instead of deforming, you're at the "hard crack" stage.  I made candy for decades without a thermometer.

But as far as feeding bees, I'm lazy.  I just put sugar on:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm#drysugar

[Koala John]

Some of the hives I've fed dry sugar to have been throwing it out the front. They do bring it back in after a few days, but the problem is it attracts huge numbers of ants. I also drizzled too much water on it at times to get the bees more interested, but I drizzled on too much water on a few and some of it turned to a syrup and set off robbing. So I've decided the fondant may be best for my girls.

I've been cooking most of the weekend, and must have done 10 or more batches. Since I put into practise the great advice given here, I've had no failures at all. For the first time I feel like I actually know a bit about something related to beekeeping, so am keen to share what I've learned!

To add to the info here, this is what I've been doing and getting excellent results with:

6.25 to 1 ratio of sugar to water, with half a table spoon of vinegar per kilogram of sugar.
This ratio worked best for me - no need to keep heating for long periods of time to lower the water content, but enough time that things didn't happen too fast for me.

I put it on a high heat, and kept stirring. It will suddenly thicken at some point. A minute or so later, I would start checking the temp, and the starting point was usually around 245 or so. As soon as it hit 265 degrees F or so, I'd turn the heat off. Some batches went to 270, but no problems were caused. I found this process quite fast and simple.

I didn't let it cool for long, just a minute or two (I was making small batches though due to cooking pot size constraints!). It was still boiling when I poured it into the moulds. Any large bubbles that rose to the surface I just patted down with a spoon.

I didn't whisk it, I found that dropping samples into water too hit and miss and laborious, and I can run out a batch in half an hour or less. The last batch I hardly had to put my ginger beer down to make!  :-D
Regarding sea level factoring, I'm about 15 feet above sea level, so no need for me to worry about that!

Thanks again for all that helped with advice and feedback.

John.