A good portion of farmers planted a small patch of sugar cane to use for sorghum making.
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They always selected their thinnest ground, preferably white ashy soil, since using their best soil might make the juice too strong. It was critical that the cane be cut at the right stage and before the first frost.
To avoid the juice to become bitter, the first step was to strip the plants by cutting the tops off just below the seed by using either a wooden paddle-like stripping tool or a lath that had been sharpened on one side. The stripped stalks were then cut and taken to the nearest mill to have the juice removed.
At the mill a horse was hitched to a long pole connected to a small press located in the hub or center of the mill which squeezed or pressed the juice out of the stalks as the horsepower operated the mill.
Since it was such a long process, sometimes two horses were used by alternating them with one resting while the other working. It required three or four men to run the sorghum mill. Some were needed to feed the stalks into the correct hopper while others watched the cooking pan and kept the fire at the correct temperature.
It was crucial to keep the fire at the correct temperature. If the fire was too hot, it would scorch the liquid; if it wasn’t hot enough, the sorghum would become too strong and too dark. As the fire burned, the liquid had to be stirred constantly and a greenish scum that came to the top removed.
To make molasses, they would start with approximately two hundred pounds of cane juice and pour it in a long pan approximately eight to ten feet long and four feet wide. The sides were eight to ten inches in height. A fire was built under the vat. It’s sides were made out of brick. A clay-mud mixture was put around the inside of the vat to keep the fire from burning the sides of the pan. A fire, requiring lots of wood, was placed in the vat.
As the fire got hotter, ‘green’ – (what you got out of the leaves) – would start coming to the top and had to be skimmed off with a small shovel. The juice was boiled over the fire all day, or until it started to thicken. When it did reach the point of thickening, the fire had to be slowed down or it would scorch the molasses. In the end, you’d get approximately eight or ten gallons of molasses.