Rock Candy

We've been working on this science experiment for a little over a week now. I'm going to be honest, it took me a few tries to get this right, but in the end it was a pretty neat thing to watch. 

I followed the instructions from: http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2015/02/rock-candy-experiment.html?m=1

...but I looked at a lot of other websites after the first try didn't work. 

Supplies: sugar, food colouring, clothespins, measuring cups, pot, glass jar, wooden sticks

The first thing you need to do it get your stick ready. First get the stick wet, then roll it in sugar. Then set it aside to dry. It has to dry completely before you use it in the jar. 

Next it is time to make the sugar solution. I found many different measurement amounts for the sugar. The first time we tried, the water to sugar ratio was 1:3, as per the instructions from the link above. This did not work for us at all. I had a feeling it had been too much sugar, so after more research, we tried a 1:1.5 ratio, which worked for us. 

Begin by putting one cup of water into your pot and adding one cup of sugar. 

Bring this 1:1 mix to a boil on the stove. The sugar should dissolve completely. Once the solution is boiling, add the rest of the sugar. We added another 1/2 cup. (The original recipe, and many others I read, suggested adding two more cups, but again, that didn't work for us.) Once all the sugar is dissolved, remove from heat. 

Carefully pour the solution you've made into the glass jar. We were able to fill two jars with the amount of liquid we made. 

Without touching the jars, Monkey added some food colouring to each one. 

Finally, you need to put the wooden sticks into the jars. Once they are dry, place them into the jar, ensuring that thy are not touching the bottom or sides. Attach the clothespin to hold the stick. 

Now you wait and observe what happens inside the jar over the next few days. 

Here are our jars after three days. 

The sugar in the water had formed crystals on the wooden stick. The solution contains more sugar than the water can keep in liquid form, so the sugar crystallizes on the stick to remove itself from the solution. You can find a more detailed expiation here: https://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/candy/rock-pop.html 

Monkey decided he wanted to leave the candy to grow some more, so we checked on it again a few days later. 

This is what the candy looked like after six days. 

The pictures don't really capture the beauty of the crystals growing on the sticks, which we think looked the best when they were still in the jars.

Monkey couldn't wait any longer to taste his rock candy, so I gave it a quick rinse and he tried it. Of course he loved it because it's just pure sugar! :) 

You may have noticed in the pictures above that a lot of sugar crystallized onto the sides and bottom the jar in addition to on the wooden stick. To clean the jars I simply poured boiling water into them which softened up the sugar until I was able to get it all out. 

Because it took me more than one try to get this experiment to work, I was less enthusiastic about it than usual. But in the end it did make a really cool finished product. 

Mar