Giant Rock Candy

by Vivian
(Chadwicks, NY)

I'm trying to make a giant rock candy for my daughters science fair project. We didn't use a string but instead used a 3 foot long dowel. Every recipe that I read was meant for making it with a cotton string.

When the solution was finally made, we let it cool down till the vase was cool to touch. But when we put our seeded dowel into the solution all of it has melted off.

This was started yesterday and the solution stick hasn't crystallized. Is it because I'm using more that it will take longer to form?

Well my concern really is, if this doesn't work, I wanted to reboil the solution to melt the sugar that came off of the stick and try it again, instead with a cotton string.

Would my sugar recrystallize if I were to reheat the saturated solution already made or do I have to make a whole new batch?

Comments for Giant Rock Candy

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May 03, 2010

Giant candy
by: Anonymous

Please dont think any less of me for my lack of puncuation or caps, it's 1am here. humm well lets see. I have a few ideas about how to get this project to work.. First off you can make the solution easier by processing the sugar in a food processor before adding it to the boiling water. the smaller the grain of sugar the easier it will melt. as for the wooden dowel I would take the original sugar solution you made and dip the dowel in it then use decorative sugar (the stuff on top of cookies) to seed the dowel not regular sugar. And make sure it completely dries before you put it into the solution maybe a few hours and keep it laying down in the sugar, then lightly rinse the dowel to knock off any sugar that would fall off and let it hang to dry a few more hours. this might strenghten the bond to the dowel. as for the sugar solution let it cool completely in the fridge covered untill your ready. Make sure the Vase is completely clean and dust free. If crystals form on the sides of the vase transfer the dowel and solution to a new vase to continue growing and skim off any crystals that form at the top of the solution. if no crystals form in about 6 hours then reheat the solution and add more sugar. Once you have a good size crystals or the crystals stop growing then make a new solution and start again. If your in a time crunch you can probably use existing rock candy to start with. Hope you have good results.

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