Generally, the more water the syrup contains, the softer the final product will be. So the cook must know how to make and recognize particular syrup concentrations. This turns out to be pretty simple. When we dissolve sugar or salt in water, the boiling point of the solution becomes higher than the boiling point of pure water (see p. 785). This increase in the boiling point depends predictably on the amount of material dissolved: the more dissolved molecules in the water, the higher the boiling point. So the boiling point of a solution is an indicator of the concentration of the dissolved material. The graph in the box below shows, for example, that a sugar syrup that boils at 250ºF/125ºC is about 90% sugar by weight.