A production day, start to finish
Updated
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Before anything is heated
- Bottles and closures out, counted, and clean.
- Labels on hand if you label at packing, with the batch code ready.
- Instrument and test cup set out, and the hydrometer checked.
- Filter ready, in position, not still in a cupboard.
- The batch sheet started, with the starting weight on it.
The long middle
Most of the day is boiling with a wide margin for error. This is the time to weigh, label and write rather than to watch, because none of it will be possible in the last twenty minutes.
The finish
Move to the finishing pan, watch it, measure often as you approach, and stop at the target rather than past it. Filter immediately, measure the filtered syrup, and pack hot. From here the batch moves faster than you want it to, which is why the preparation above is not optional.
After the last bottle
Fill temperature at the last bottle, yield in bottles, what went to seconds and why, and the density reading with its temperature. Written then, not that evening, because a log reconstructed afterwards records what you intended rather than what happened.
Then leave it alone and look again
Crystals and mold both appear later. A batch that passed every check on the day is not confirmed until some of it has sat for a few weeks, which is an argument for holding a bottle from every batch and actually opening it rather than only shipping them.
Keep one bottle back from every batch
Labeled with its code and stored the way a customer would store it. It costs one unit of stock and it is the only way to see what your own product does over its shelf life rather than hearing about it from somebody who bought it. Open one from a batch three months old on a day when nothing is wrong, not only when a complaint arrives.