RANDOLPH, Vt.—Producers and state officials are checking syrup hydrometers and finding they’re off. At the state laboratory in Randolph, Vt., weights and measures officials for the Vermont agriculture department so far this year tossed out 6.6 percent of the 11,4126 hydrometers checked. A total of 749 hydrometers were rejected for sale. “The failure rate has doubled since 2019,” said Marc Paquette, chief metrologist for the Vermont agriculture agency, who oversees the lab testing. Vermont is the only state in the nation that offers official testing of hydrometers, and all of the big equipment manufacturers send huge batches of hydrometers to be tested there before they are sold back to sugarmakers. Before the year is over, Paquette and his team in the official Hydrometer Volumetric Room at the state office campus in Randolph are expected to test and verify upwards of 15,000 hydrometers, a record. Hydrometer checking was also a highlight at the Indiana Maple Syrup Association annual meeting in Greencastle, Ind. last month. There, Mary Fogle Douglass of Sugar Bush Supplies brought in an official hydrometer testing kit where a weighted test hydrometer is floated in a solution of potassium iodide and compared against the sugarmaker’s hydrometer.