If you have a heating pad,turn it on high,lay your bottles or tubes on the pad and fold the top over on top of them.This should work.

Keeping the warming water in a crock pot is a great idea.

Is the crock pot on high?

Michelle

I used to use the cheap, thin, mustard & ketchup bottles with the little cap attached, with the screw on caps... ( the snap on caps leak )... I kept a pot of hot water close at hand and would invert the bottles in the hot water between uses... If it was going to be an all day session I would keep the pot in the sink and every 45 minutes or so I'd refill the pot with hot tap water ( I keep the hot water tank on high, 140 F degrees )... You have to keep a towel handy to wipe off the bottles and tap the bottom, of the bottle, on the towel a few times to get the water out of the cap rim...

Rita

Well, I've never tried this in bottles but my candy coating that I used to cover ritz crackers with peanut butter in the middle (it's really good, like a reese's PB cup). In the double boiler when the mixture gets too stiff, if you will put a little bit of Crisco (the white kind in a can, non liquid) this will thin it down and keep it liquid like, then when it cools down, it hardens as before. You could try that. Maybe it will work, maybe not. Let us know what happens, I'd be curious.

i never have much luck with the heating pad, but what i use is an (older) warming tray. you can pick one up cheap at a thrift shop. i usually keep a mat or a thin cookie sheet or something on top so as not to burn the plastic of the squeeze bottle. another option is your crock pot, assuming you have one. i have also stopped filling them all the way - harder to get the stuff out if it really solidifies.

i prefer not to use anything water based, just in case, although i've rescued quite a bit of chocolate/candy coating after it seized from getting moisture in it.

The problems I've had with using a crockpot is that the sides of the crockpot get too hot and the bottles in the center are too cool. Even the low setting gets too high at times. When the heater kicks in, it heats the water up too high even for the bottles in the center of the crockpot. I should have thought about that because soups, stews, etc DO simmer on low---way too hot for coatings. One thing I didn't say is that I thought I should be able to warm up 24 colors and keep them warm all day (rainbow of colors plus light and dark shades). Probably an impossible and unnecessary dream!. I really don't use all of the colors all day long & should be happy just to keep the 5 or 6 I'm actually using at the time warm. I use the coatings to decorate cookies instead of using Royal icing (Yuk!). I can't lay the bottles on their sides or upside down because I use bottles with couplers and cake decorating tips on top that I can't close up (different sizes, shapes). That eliminates a heating pad.

You all have given me some great ideas including ones that come from adding your ideas & experience together. I'm going to try:
-not filling bottles past half way
-using a warming tray and sitting the bottles in mugs filled with hot water or like ritaotay, a pot of hot water
-using a warming tray the way earthlydelights does

Piper10, you might want to try using Paramount Crystals instead of Crisco to thin coatings. I used to use Crisco but found that Paramount Crystals don't give the finished candy a greasy feel and the tendency to melt in your hand. Learned that one the hard way! Think little red, green & brown handprints on walls, floors & furniture!

Thank you all! I'll let you know how it goes during my next cookie marathon in mid-late January (for winter & Valentines Day). Hope I can still find this post by then.