Friday, February 14, 2014

Sweet & YUMMY !!!

 From Homegrown Sugarcane 
 to make Homemade Syrup 

It worked…!  Wow…! 

Did it! Used homegrown sugarcane to make something useful. 
And it was easy as 1 - 2 - 3.

Taste is quite similar to molasses, but sweeter, clear, and with a deep orangeish-red color. I LOVE molasses, so I'm happy with this new truly natural, organic and vegan syrup.

The only drawback is the amount you get after boiling it down. Similar to when boiling down maple syrup, but you get a bit more, perhaps. I started with about 3-4 cups of juice after pressure-cooking. I finished with about ¼ cup of syrup.

ALWAYS USE UTMOST CARE: Hot sugar liquids are very dangerous and should never be handled except by responsible adults fully capable of performing such task safely at all times. See "CAUTION" below.


What I did:

Placed washed, peeled and split cane pieces, covered with filtered water, in a pressure cooker pot.

Cooked in an electric pressure cooker, for speed and simplicity. I cooked on the steam program for about 1hr.

Transferred the juice to a pot and boiled it down on the stove. In hindsight the pressure cooker's "sauté" program might have simplified the task a bit.

Removed from the heat at the thread stage (candy cooking temperature). Next time I'll stop a bit earlier so it's not quite as thick once refrigerated.

CAUTION (MUST READ): Before you decide to do this, make absolutely certain that this is a task you are able to handle safely. Ensure children and pets are not nearby, unsupervised or in your way, and that you are always able to and paying full and continuous attention to the work at hand. Your work area should be clean and free of obstructions. Do not leave this process unattended. Boiling sugars are EXTREMELY HOT and VISCOUS. They can cause SEVERE BURNS and the liquid's viscosity may worsen injuries. UTMOST CAUTION should be exercised when handling this substance in order to prevent injuries to yourself, others or pets. 

Note: On the photo, the cane segments are whole, but I later decided to split each segment in ½, then each split segment into 3 or 4 wedges.

Acknowledgement: Thank you to David, blog author of Florida Survival Gardening for the great idea. I modified the process slightly, peeling the cane and using a pressure cooker, but I otherwise followed his instructions.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Making sugarcane syrup without a press

David, author of Florida Survival Gardening blog explains how to make Sugarcane syrup at home, without a press.

I've been growing sugarcane for a couple years now. It grows fast, is quite prolific and does not need as much water as I had thought. I've been looking for a way to extract the juice, but the cane juice extractors are so expensive and I have no idea if they are any good, where to get them serviced if they break, etc.

And how can I ever recoup the cost of such a purchase, unless it lasts literally forever…

I found one local reseller of extractors, and several distributors across the Pacific. Not a simple purchase and a lot of the cost is shipping (actually higher than the actual extractor in many cases.)

I may give David's method a try, and I will also see if a pressure cooker might be helpful in reducing the extraction time, as opposed to just boiling the cane in water.

Straining Air for Water...

Or, in other words, harvesting the humidity in the air.

With well-below-normal precipitations now 3 years in a row, this may be worth trying if you live in California. The ground is very dry and significantly deeply.

goo.gl/pPeZyJ

FAI's "Natural" Effect

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I found this gem while looking for a way to make sugarcane juice/syrup without a sugarcane press (because they are SO expensive and I cannot find a decent one stocked in the U.S., let alone made here…  More on that in another post.)

A little big long, but gets interesting around 0:02:21









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