I can’t believe I forgot to post this, the most photogenic of all the stuff I’ve  done so far!  As background, this was a 4×4′ plot of Sugar Drip Sorghum, planted in mid-May. I spaced the plants about 8″ apart, and tilled up the clay with a top dress of nitrogen. All the plants came up great, no real need for water.

I cut the canes with garden shears, trimmed the seed pods, and then cut the canes into pieces to fit the oil press.

This was loaded into the hydraulic press, with a stainless drip pan to catch the raw juice.

After a long time of loading the way too small press, I got a cup of raw sorghum juice. You can see the starch and flotsam in the liquid, I didn’t let it settle which was a mistake. I did use a very fine mesh coffee filter on the juice, but it doesn’t get the starch grains out.

This was then boiled down in a small pot, skimming off all the green scum (this is supposed to be vital to keep it from tasting terrible). I used a wood spoon, there may be a better way but it seemed to work OK. It tends to stick to the sides where you can tease it off and dispose of it, sort of messy process.

The end result was a quarter cup of syrup, which was not fully boiled down so maybe 1/5 or 1/6 had I done it right. If you leave too much water, it develops mold right away. Mine did this in less than 3 weeks at room temperature, so didn’t get a chance to taste it on food. I did another small batch using later canes, it tasted gamey and I literally could not eat more than a few bites.

I think I need to get the canes at the “soft dough” stage, let the juice settle, strain thought a paper filter, then filter again. It may be that this stuff just tastes bad and that’s why we all eat cane or corn syrup versus sorghum. I vaguely recall my dad buying a jug of this when I was a kid, and that it was inedible.