Chocolate & Candy 235°FEstimates

Candy Temperature & Sugar Stage Calculator

Every candy recipe cooks sugar to a stage: soft ball for fudge, hard crack for toffee. Get the right temperature for your altitude or your thermometer, with the cold-water test and a chart of every stage.

How to use it

Choose the stage your recipe cooks to, or enter its temperature.
Enter your altitude, or test your thermometer in boiling water and enter what it reads.
Cook to the adjusted temperature, and use the cold-water test to confirm.

How it works

As syrup boils, water evaporates and the temperature rises; each stage is a sugar concentration, from about 80% at thread to nearly 100% at hard crack. At altitude, water boils at a lower temperature, so every stage arrives at a lower temperature too.

The calculator finds your boiling point from air pressure at your altitude and lowers the targets by the same amount. Using your thermometer's own boiling reading also corrects a thermometer that reads high or low. Caramel stages depend on color, not water, so they don't change.

Assumptions: these results are estimates

Altitude boiling points follow standard atmosphere pressure; weather shifts them by a degree or so.
Stage ranges are the standard confectionery chart; recipes may target a specific point within a range.

Tips

Clip the thermometer to the pot so the tip sits in the syrup, not on the bottom.
Brush the pot sides with a wet pastry brush to dissolve stray crystals.
Test your thermometer every few months in boiling water.