Post #777354 by El Jefe on Thu, Jun 29, 2017 9:04 PM

Can't sleep tonight so after a little more looking found the following in the comments section of this article:

http://postprohibition.com/diy/simple-syrup/

There are a couple of ways to prevent crystallization. If the water has boiled with the sugar when preparing the syrup the chances are higher that the syrup will crystallise. So try to stay below boiling point. When making a flavoured syrup (like with herbs) you can boil the water to have a better extraction of the herbs (or other) and add sugar at a later time.

Another thing you can do is to use a fine mesh strainer to make sure there are no sugar crystals in your syrup. When there is one crystal, other crystals grow around it.

*The above tracks along with the way the Cooks Illustrated guys make their simple syrup. They never bring the water to a boil. Just a simmer

There was also this:

I love making symple syrups and as a chef have been making them for my bartenders for years. As for the sugar recrystalizing, sugar has two natural states it is either a crystaline solid or liquid anyone who has ever messed up a batch of candy knows that when it starts to crystalize your pretty much S.O.L. The crystalization of sugar is a chain recation caused by having sugar in the crystal form interact with sugar in the liquid form and then heat being introduced. The easiest way to prevent this is to make sure that when your melting your sugar that you constantly wipe off the rim of your pot at the water line and incorporate all the sugar so it all melts.