From Cane To Cane Syrup

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be invited to an old time cane grind'n - sugar cane that is. My friend Daniel "Bubba" Rhodes had planted a patch of cane back in March as an experiment "just to see if he could do it" and it was time to be harvested and he put out the notice that he could use some help in getting it squeezed. Luckily, Daniel did the hard part Friday and cut, leafed and topped the cane and loaded it into his pickup truck and attached trailer and then hauled it to the cane grinder guy(Mr. W.)on the north side of Jacksonville. All we had to do was show up!

A couple of hundred years ago evidently farmers would hitch up a mule to a long pole then someone would either ride or lead the mule around and around the grinder while folks fed the cane thru the grinding wheels and collected the juice on the other side. Then they'd tote the juice to a huge cast iron pot and cook it down to syrup.  Mr. W. told Daniel that he'd need about 500 stalks of cane to fill his pot. We met out at the "farm" and began grinding at about 7:30 in the morning. Mr. W. had biscuits and sausage and coffee for everyone.


Mr. W. had two electric grinders - one was a 1/2 HP built in the 1930's in Jacksonville and the other was a newer model 2HP and boy did it squeeze some juice. Mr high school buddy Raymond Keen and I were shoving cane thru the smaller grinder while Daniel and his friend and neighbor Monroe worked at the other one.  It took no time at all to begin to pile up a huge pile of waste that collected on a chain link "sled" that Mr. W. said he'd drag off into the woods after we were all done.



Both mills were set up in such a way that the juice was routed thru some removable PVC pipes into the cooking shed and drained thru a rack with burlap bags acting as a strainer.  The grinder that Raymond and I were on eventually got in a bind (I was advised not to put two big stalks thru it, just a big 'un and a little 'un, but I miscalculated) and the grinder came to a halt. Yep, I broke it. By the time we got if fixed we were able to move the whole operation over to the newer grinder.

Eventually Mr. W. called for a halt - the big cast iron vat was full!  He had some huge propane tanks outside the shed that were piped in to multi-burner unit under the vat; Mr. W. said years ago they would use wood, but that made it more difficult to moderate the temperature. He fired it up and we soon found that the cooking needed to be watched constantly and the temperature adjusted on occasion.











All told, the cane juice cooked for about 4 1/2 hours. At first, there was a big "scum" of impurities that accumulated on top of the cooking juice. Mr. W. and his grandson monitored the cooking process continually and every once in a while they'd take some home made skimmers and take the scum off of the top of the juice. I assume they were adjusting the heat as needed.

Eventually they didn't have to skim anymore and then they really let it cook. If you look at the above picture you can see a large SS ring hanging over Mr. W's right shoulder; it fit perfectly over the iron vat and once the temperature was just right, the foam with it's impurities would spill over and be filtered thru some croaker sacks that lined the ring(click on the video to the left). Every once in while we'd remove those sacks, take them out in the yard and rinse them, and put them back for some more filtering.






This went on for a couple of hours. The cooking shed was hot and steamy but when you stepped in for a peek you could begin to smell the syrup! Those in charge (and boy did they know what they were doing!) knew when to lift the SS ring from the vat and remove the croaker sack filters and then three of them surrounded the vat and began taking rags and wiping the edge of the vat as the last of the impurities bubbled to the edge.   I don't know how they did it - it seemed like this process took an hour of wiping, wiping, cleaning their cloth, wiping, wiping, cleaning their cloth.  Even though we had some cooler temperatures that morning, it was hot and steamy in the cooking shed!

We were getting close to the end of the process!   Mr. W. must have known it was getting close - he said he could tell when the syrup began to "fall" in the vat and no amount of heat could bring it back up. (click on video to the left) The foam on top was light and airy and had turned a beautiful golden color. But Mr. W.  instructed his grandson(he knew what to do - he'd been doing this with his grandfather since he was a little kid) to use a hydrometer to test the liquid; they had a homemade PVC contraption that the hydrometer fit down in and  with one hand holding the hydrometer at arms length, he dipped out some of the syrup and poured it in. It only took a time or two over the course of a few minutes and they pronounced it ready.







The heat was shut off and two guys took some home made dippers and begin to take turns dipping the hot syrup into a modified beer keg that had a spigot down at the bottom.  Once all the syrup had been dipped out, the vat was quickly cleaned with water while it was still hot.

Daniel provided the bottles and caps and Mr. W. began to pour off the syrup into bottles. I had the honor of  putting the caps on the bottles but was warned to "grab them at the top" because boy were they hot! But I didn't drop a single one!

I had seen parts of this process a couple of times in my life. Once was over in the Branford, Florida area when I was young boy. I vaguely remember a tractor attached to along pole that went around the grinder. We must not of hung around because I don't remember any of the cooking. Also as a young boy, I remember my dad taking me out past the interstate in Yulee to a "grinding" and here they were  cooking the syrup.  So approximately 50 years ago!  This time I got to experience the entire operation and boy was it a treat!