Sugar blowing and Pulling

[sweetexpress]

I have started workng again on Pulled and blown sugar. It has been a long time and I was never really got great at it. I will need to pull and blow a sugar piece in Florida in July. My concern is there will be no stoves so I will have to make the sugar and take it with me and reheat it. I ws told I should use isomalt instead of Sugar because of the humidity in Florida.
These are the problems I am having:
I was told to heat my isomalt to 336 but it seems my suagr is really brittle
when I heat it back up. Do you think I will have better success starting back practicing on real sugar? I have forgotten what the feel of the sugar should be when it is warm. Mine seems to be too liquid or too hard to roll into a ball for blowing. I would love to take a class but the bakery runs every day and I can not get away at this point I do have Notter's videos and all the equipment.

What suggestion does anyone else on a blown piece that is impressive but
not too complicated?

[sweetexpress]

Finally made a swan that did not look perfect but not too bad for the fisrt one that had no breaks. One other question I would like to ask is, do you need to cook your sugar at the same temperature if you are going to be reheating it again. Is there a faster way to reheat besides jsut putting it under the lamp. How far should the sugar be from the lamp?

[rat]

You can reheat sugar in a microwave with 5-10 second bursts, be careful you don't melt the center of the sugar or you will be in for a nasty surprise when you start pulling it. As for the distance the sugar needs to be from the lamp depends of the wattage of the lamp. A 250 watt bulb should be about 10 inches from the sugar.

[ChefRAZ]

My first one after notters classes was the swans too.but the fish feels easier to do you can make it as simple as you want. a couple shells some coral sugar ,rock sugar and a base . can look real nice. my last one is here. 001.avi videos from friends & fun videos on webshots

[sweetexpress]

Amazing work, I thought about a fish but I have only about an hour in this certification to get a cast piece, a pulled piece and a blown piece made into an arrangement and felt I could not get all th pieces made to make a seascape.

[sweetexpress]

One other question, for my cast pieces should I just make my sugar and pour it in a container for reheating on site in the microwave. How much quality oif the sugar will I lose like clarity or shine.