Tools and directories

The batch log, and the fields that matter

Updated October 2026

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The fields Why those three columns do most of the work Record the blend, not just the batches Write it during, not after Then read it at the end of the season It is cheap insurance against one expensive question References

Syrup fails weeks after it is made, so the log is the only diagnostic that survives. Three columns answer most questions that a bad batch raises.

The fields

Batch code, and which formulation or which raw material lot.
Raw material: source, date collected or bought, starting weight.
Finished weight of salable syrup, which gives the true yield.
Density at the finish, with the temperature, the instrument and the mark.
Density again after filtering, because that is what you bottled.
Fill temperature at the first bottle and the last.
Color class, if you are grading, assigned at bottling.
Time from filling to the cases being cool.
Yield in bottles, and what went to seconds and why.

Why those three columns do most of the work

Density with its temperature separates an under-density mold complaint from a packing one. Fill temperature at both ends separates a batch problem from a run problem. Weight in against weight out turns yield from an impression into a number, and the gap is where the unrecorded losses are hiding.

Record the blend, not just the batches

If two batches are combined, the result is a new batch with a new code and its own reading. Blends recorded as "some of each" are stock you cannot trace when one of the inputs turns out to have been the problem.

Write it during, not after

A log filled in that evening records what you intended. It has to live where the work happens and be simple enough to complete with sticky hands, which is an argument for a clipboard rather than a spreadsheet during the run.

Then read it at the end of the season

The value is comparison across batches, which only happens if the fields stay the same and somebody actually looks. One afternoon lining the density column up against the complaints is worth more than any single page here.

It is cheap insurance against one expensive question

When a complaint arrives, the only question that matters is whether it is one bottle or a batch. Without a code and a reading, the honest answer is that you do not know, and the safe response to not knowing is to treat every bottle from that period as suspect. The log is what turns a recall of everything into a recall of one batch.

Keep it for as long as the product could plausibly still be on somebody’s shelf, which for a shelf-stable syrup is longer than a season. A log discarded at the end of the year is a log discarded exactly when the batches it covers are starting to generate questions.

References

United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service. United States Standards for Grades of Maple Sirup (Syrup), adopted January 29, 2015 and effective March 15, 2015. Grade A is “not less than 66.0 nor more than 68.9 percent solids content by weight (Brix)” in four color classes measured as percent light transmittance. ams.usda.gov

State of Vermont. Maple Products Regulations, Section III, which sets packaged maple syrup at a minimum of 66.9 degrees Brix at 60 °F and a maximum of 68.9, on instruments calibrated at 60 °F. law.cornell.edu

Written from federal regulation, a state maple regulation and published extension guidance, not from a laboratory. The density figures quoted are standards of identity and grade, and your state may set its own above them. Anything here is a starting point for a conversation with your state department of agriculture, not a determination that you comply.