Why is is that I have to use water to test candy stages?!
Why is is that I have to use water to test candy stages?
When you don't have a candy thermometer they say you can use a water test. You take some of the hot candy and drop it into cold water to see what stage it's at. Why water, couldn't you just drop it on some wax paper and see where it's at? Just something I've always wanted to know.
Answers: Water is 8 times as efficient as air at transferring heat. This is why you can stick your hands into a 350 degree oven and it's slightly uncomfortable, but hold your hands over a boiling pot and the steam will burn you (the steam can only get to 212). So when you drop the sugar into the water, in theory it cools it off 8 times as fast. (I don't know if the 8 times faster thing is scientific, but it makes sense to me.)
Not to mention, softball stage sugar needs to be rolled into a little ball by hand. Who wants to grab 240 degree sugar? If you stick your hands in ice water, grab the sugar and go straight back into the ice water, you can't feel anything, and then you are able to roll the sugar into a "softball". This is called the pate baume test.
Besides... if you drop the sugar straight from the pot onto wax paper, the sugar will continue to cook on the paper. That's why when carmelizing sugar, you take the pot and dunk the whole thing in ice water, to stop the cooking NOW. If you don't, you will end up with a big ol pot of black, carmelized mess.
Wow this got long, lol. I guess the easist, shortest answer would be, the state the sugar will stay at is room temperature, and you want to get it back to that temperature as quickly as possible. Hence cold water. Water cools it very rapidly. If you put it on wax paper you would have to wait for several minutes for it to cool. By that time the sugar you are testing could be way overdone. It's not written in stone you have to do it that way but I'm sure the food people who recommended that process also tried the wax paper, and other techniques. This saves you the trouble of what they learned from their mistakes. So you're more than welcomed to use the techniques that fit you. Cold water is much cooler than the air, and you use water because when making candy the 'stage' it is at can change very quickly. Waiting for the candy to cool on the wax paper can take so long it's stage will 'change' while you wait for it to cool, and wax paper can also cause the 'stage' to seem different from reality, because the wax would melt. If you had a way to suspend foil so there was air under it, you would possibly have a 'slightly better' way to check the 'stage' of your candy, bit even that could still take too long. Water is really 'the best and the easiest' way to check your candy. Use a 'clear glass' with about two inches of water, so you can 'see' the 'stage' ... some will 'string' and some will just form a small ball ... and THAT is another reason that using water is best. LEARN HOW from someone who KNOWS how to tell the different stages with the 'water test' if you want to make really good candy with the right 'feel' ... I agree with those above.
The water cools it faster.
So if it is at the right stage you know right then
not waiting for it to cool. then the candy getting to hard. idont no! sorry