Rock Candy

Sarah vontersch, Corbin Reinhardt
Chemistry 3
Steve Smith
4/24/18
Food lab
You rock! Candy

Number of servings: 2-6
Ingredients/ supplies:
Granulated Sugar
Tall glasses
Kabob sticks/ wooden skewers/ string
A pot
Step by step process:
1) Soak sticks in water and roll in sugar until coated. Then set
aside to dry. *make sure they are completely coated and dry
2) Add 1 cup of water, and 3 cups of sugar to a medium sized pot.
3) Thoroughly mix the sugar and water.
4) Put the pot on the stove on high, and stir occasionally until the
liquid boils.
5) After the liquid starts to
boil, mix rapidly until all of the
sugar is dissolved. (add flavor if
wanted)
6) Remove from heat

7) Pour liquid into glasses and place one of your dry
sugar covered sticks in each glass. Secure them in a way
that they aren't touching the inside sides, or bottom of the
glass. *Make sure that the stick isn't touching the sides
because the candy will form and the crystals hold the stick to the bottom of the glass.
8) Be careful not to disturb the glasses and
let them sit for 24-48 hours
9) Carefully crack the top layer of hard
candy on top of the liquid and slowly remove
the stick from the liquid.
10) Hang the sticks and let the remaining
syrup drip from the crystals until there dry.
Experiment: For bigger sugar crystals in our rock candy we tried putting in different
additives into the solution. Our first aim was to make a blank crystal with no additives. This
did not go as planned and more research lead to the idea that altitude may have something
to do with this. After reevaluating we tried a series of other methods like: soaking the sticks
in solution before letting it sit to dry, using a thermometer to be precise on boiling point at
our specific elevation which is about 6500 feet and lastly letting it sit longer than the
recommended time.
Trial 1- No additive, no
high altitude
adjustments
Did not form crystals.
Trial 2- No additive, high altitude adjustments

Medium to large crystals formed.
Trial 3- Sucrose additive no altitude

adjustments. No crystals formed.
Trial 4-
Sucrose additive, high altitude
adjustments.
Small crystals formed.
Trial 5-
Vanilla extract additive, no
high altitude adjustments.
Small crystals formed.
Trial 6-
Vanilla extract additive high altitude
adjustments
Big crystals formed and became so big they
stuck to the cup.
Science: Why this work (or maybe sometimes doesn't)
Rock candy is formed from the crystallization and supersaturation of sugar. Crystals are
the solid formal patterns often of food items. When heated up the molecules move randomly
but form a certain way when cooled. Solubility refers to the amount of solute than can be
dissolved into a liquid known as the solvent. All liquids have a set solubility to a specific
substance at room temperature, some are high and some are low. As the temperature of the
solvent increases, its solubility increases as well. At the beginning of the process the 3 cups
of sugar do not dissolve in the water. As the pot heats up, the sugar can be dissolved all the
way. Because there are more sugar dissolved in the water than there could be normally, this
creates a supersaturated solution. A supersaturated solution is a solution that has a higher
amount of solute dissolved in them than under normal conditions. As the solution cools with
the stick of sugar in it, the temperature begins to go back down to room temperature. As this
happens the solubility decreases with it, and the molecules form a solid crystallized
precipitate. The cooler it gets the more sugar molecules will be formed. Because sugar
tends to crystallized with other sugars instead of forming a new crystal, the sugar on the
stick begins to grow into sugar candy! The sugar on the stick is known as seed crystals. This
process is called crystallization. The shape of the crystals is dependent on the substance
and different substances will grow into different shapes.
Why didn't it work:

Supersaturation and crystallization was the plan, however for the first couple trials this
did not work. At sea level liquid has a blood point of 212 degrees fahrenheit which
decreases by 1 degree for every 500 feet. Due to the boiling point where we are in Durango
Colorado at about 6,500 feet, the adjustments of the temperature the mixture was when
ready to be taken off the stove was made in table 1 and the new trials were better looking.
Our results/ qualitative tests:

Our crystals formed in different sizes and from our many trials and data, the vanilla
extract additive with high altitude adjustments formed the biggest crystals. High altitude
adjustment blanks were the next biggest, and the other high altitude tests with sucrose kool
aid additives formed small crystals. The tests conducted without high altitude adjustments
had no success in forming crystals at all. Out of the taste tests that our families conducted,
the sucrose additive with high altitude adjustments was the sweetest then the vanilla then
the blank, and everyone's favorite was the vanilla. If making this in the future for ourselves,
we would use the high altitude recipe and use vanilla extract.
High altitude recipe:
Ingredients/ supplies:
Granulated Sugar
Tall glasses
Kabob sticks/ wooden skewers/ string
A pot
Step by step process:

1)Add 1 cup of water, and 3 cups of sugar to a medium
sized pot and thoroughly mix the sugar and water.
2)Put the pot on the stove on high, and stir occasionally
until the liquid boils.
3) After the liquid reaches the temperature of boiling
insinuated by the chart below, mix rapidly until all of the
sugar is dissolved.
DEGREES FAHRENHEIT
Sea Level 2,000 ft 5000ft 75
Hard Toffee, brittle, 300-310 296-306 290-300 285-295

Crack lollipops
4) Soak sticks in solution and roll in sugar until coated. Then set aside to dry. *make sure
they are completely coated and dry
5) Remove from heat

6) Pour liquid into glasses and place one of your dry sugar
covered sticks in each glass. Secure them in a way that they
aren't touching the inside sides, or bottom of the glass. *Make
sure that the stick isn't touching the sides because the candy will form and the crystals hold
the stick to the bottom of the glass.
7) Be careful not to disturb the glasses and let them sit for 48-160 hours *until you are
satisfied with the size of your crystals.
8) Carefully crack the top layer of hard candy on top of the liquid and slowly remove the stick
from the liquid.
9) Hang the sticks and let the remaining syrup drip from the crystals until there dry.
10) Enjoy your rock candy!
Personal Commentary:
This recipe was kind of a hassle but lower altitudes should have better luck with the process
of crystallization. We also noticed along the way that the longer the mixture sits to cool the
better it works, and dipping the stick in the sugar mixture before pouring it in the cup, helps
the crystals to stay on the stick better. Another problem we ran into was the crystals sticking
to the bottom of the cup s holding them further away would be helpful later on in the
process.

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Sarah vontersch, Corbin Reinhardt

You rock! Candy

6) Remove from heat

Trial 2- No additive, high altitude adjustments

Trial 3- Sucrose additive no altitude

Why didn't it work:

Our results/ qualitative tests:

Step by step process:

Sea Level 2,000 ft 5000ft 75

Hard Toffee, brittle, 300-310 296-306 290-300 285-295

5) Remove from heat

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