Sweet Soiurgum

[briduhunt]

I read an artical in the current Maples News about a farmer who raises sweet sourgum and then boils it down in the Fall. I have been doing alot of thinking about this as I have a farmer freind who might work with me on this as he has the land and I have the evaporator. My only concern is how to sell the syrup and where. He states in the article that he brings it to the city to sell at farmers markets along with his maple syrup and he seems to have a good thing going. My bigest questions is what do prople use this syrup for? I know that it is used in the commerical market for a sweetner but what would joe homeowner use it for.
From what I can tell with living in the heart of the Finger Lakes, the heat from the lakes could possible work the same as the river does for this farmers growing season.
I would like to hear from other people on their opinions on this issue.

Thanks

[Beweller]

An awfully large number of years ago I heard of sorghum molasses. The name sounded delicious and I finally got my father to bring some home. My memory says it looked like Bunker C, and while I have never tasted Bunker C, my memory says it tasted like Bunker C.

What I have seen since says not that bad.

My understanding is that before cane sugar, maple sugar was the sweeting agent in the northern part of the country. South of the maple region sorghum was the available sweetener. It was considered inferior to maple sugar.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Yes some might think its inferior to maple syrup but its far superior to molassas

[firetech]

Brian I've been researching this project myself. It seems kinda silly to put up a processing building and only useing it for 4-6weeks a year. Go to syrupmakers.com and get into Kens email list and read the threads look at the links just explore. Lots of info. Also get to the Sweet Sorghum producers web page and read Morris Bitzers stuff from Kentucky State Univ. If you can grow a corn crop you can make sorghum one of the largets producers is in Wi mid state. As far as uses they pour it hot over biscuits ,pancakes and they make kick butt cookies and cakes. I just purchased a power driven press and a corn binder to process the juice. I'm looking for some 30in cross flow pans to go on my 30x10 Leader arch to batch cook or building a custom continuos flow pan. As far as marketing I'm planning on lots of samples make cookies and having recipity books or sheets to give away. Can you come up with the name of the folks that are doing this. I was surfing the net the other nite and folks in Ohio were doing this but I could't find them in a white pages search .

[WF MASON]

I try to collect early brouchures or letters form equipment manafactures, many in the 1800's like Sears evaporators and others always included processing soiurgum,molesses, cane ect. in the evaporator uses.

[shortround]

Brian,
I'm in my second year of growing/trying to grow sweet sorghum. My crop did well this year until Hurricane Gustov and Ike came through. The sorghum patch looked like a basket of coathangers and it just wasn't worth it to untangle it.
I've got a mid 20's Goldens' No. 3 mill that's powered by a gear motor and sprocket to give ~ 7 rpm on the main roller. It will crush approximately 65 gallons of juice per hour. Sorghum juice will boil down to syrup at around an 8:1 ratio.
It's sorghum syrup, not molasses. Molasses is a by product of cane sugar production. Sorghum will cook be light to dark color and is typically mild flavored. Bill Outlaw, southernmatters.com, has a wealth of information available on his site.
Syrupmakers.com has a good discussion mailing list.
While a large number of the sorghum/sugar cane syrup makers tend to stick with "traditional" methods of production, I think the technology used on the maple side of the house could benefit sorghum producers also.
It's a nitch market. Prices are not bad. Growing season is around 120 days.
The last info I had was that there was something like 40 acres grown in Arkansas.
Batch pans or continous flow works well for sorghum.
E-mail me at b.lipe at att.net and I'll send you a bunch of the info I have. I'd really like to swap info with some of you maple cookers.

Bruce
In the middle of Weather Dry Creek in Avilla, Arkansas.