Making sugar from beets

With mangles the animals would especially be a problem. Mangle greens are often known as Summer Spinach as they can be harvested and used like spinach in the heat of the summer when the real thing will bolt. I have not known anyone myself to harvest them for sugar, but both the roots and greens make a very good livestock feed. As for cutting, I would suggest and old fashion cabbage cutter if you can find one, especially if you can find one with an adjustable thickness so that you can slice thinly.

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Actually, its an Australian thing. We always have beetroot on our hamburgers down here. And in fact, Mc Donalds do have a burger with beetroot in Australia, its called the McOz (Oz being short for Australia).No kidding. The Mc Oz.

Tastes fantastic, makes a mess though :haha: .

Does anyone know if the leaves are edible for stock? Could you graze first then dig beets or would cattle tear out the beets? Im sure pigs would go straight for the tubers.

Raphael from Oz

Thanks for straightening me out on those that use the beetroot on burgers. While I was wrong, at least I wasn't dreaming nor fabricating it. lol.

Since you are in the know---will canned beets work? Doesn't sound like it would be too appetising with canned, but I could be wrong.

Thats what we use. The canned beets are soft, so they dont cause hamburger collapse . Fresh beet would be too tough I think.

They taste fine.
Raf

Pickled beets might be pretty tasty on a burger.

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Cyngbaeld's Keep Heritage Farm, breeding a variety of historical birds and LaMancha goats. (It is pronounced King Bold.)

Bumping this up because I was SO CURIOUS to look into sugar beets and how to process them.

I wonder if using a juicer-type contraption would work? Even if it didn't produce much "juice" it could make the beets into a pulp which then could be soaked in water and then strained, right? What if I cooked the beets in pieces, then ran them through a juicer and then evaporated the juice, would it ever crystallize?

I wish I had more luck googling this, I KNOW that people used to do this on a small scale, I just want to know how. THe latest edition of Carla Emery's book says that it isn't really feasible to make beet sugar on a small scale. But that's not stopping my brain! There's got to be a way!

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Cynb...
What happened in 2005 when you tried this?
Ann

I thought the same thing. I'll probably try that soon. I've gotten the craving for anything sour or pickled. Donna says I'm pregnant.

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I know the rabbits love them, the tops and the roots. Didn't plant any this year, maybe next. I think with all the work involved I'm better off using them for hog feed and buying my sugar.

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I haven't read all the posts above so I may be repeating one.

I have this saved in a word document in my "be prepared" file on my computer. I don't remember where the info came from. I found it online a long time ago. Anyway, here's what I have, I haven't tried it yet so don't know how good it will work.


Making sugar from Beets -

Many years ago sugar was a priceless commodity.
In WWII sugar was rationed and prized as a bartering tool.

You can make this prized sweet from sugar beets very easily.
Make sure you are growing or purchasing Sugar Beets.
Scrub the beet well and chop it up into small pieces.

In a large pan, cover the beet pieces with water and bring to a boil.
Cook the beets untill they are tender and the juice is extracted.
Drain out the juice and reserve it.

Boil down the juice to about 1/3 it's original volume.
Let cool and scrape out the crystals.
Boil the juice again, until it is all gone, remove the crystallized juice again.

Your sugar will not be pure white and it may have a slight beet flavor, but it will be far superior nutritionally to refined sugar.

Store sugar in a jar with a tight fitting lid.
Use it just as you would refined sugar.

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I don't see why small scale production wouldn't work. If beets run 2% sugar that's not too bad. Maple sap runs 3% and that's pretty low, too. And there are probably higher sugar variety beets out there.

Did anyone try this?

Jennifer

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Bringing up memories from my youth. Had an uncle teach me how to do this when I was a teenager. He raised sugar beets. He dubbed it as a lesson to appreciate how much work the sugar companies.

We would wash and peel the beets. Then either put them in a blender to chop them up or chop the up as fine as we could. We would add about enough water to quadruple this in volume and bring it to a boil and them let it simmer for about an hour (only 30 minutes if you finely chop with a blender). Drain off the water and run the mash through a cider press. This will get the most out the mash.

At this point my uncle would always put some away to make beet cider and beet wine. That part he never taught us kids. I really think this is why he went through this process every year.

Now the sugar water is brought back to a boil then let to slowly simmer until about the consistency of maple syrup. A little flavoring (maple, apple juice, or some fruit juice) and some more was put away at this point just for that purpose.

Now the remaining was poured onto a cookie sheet and placed into the oven on warm with the door cracked open to dry overnight. He'd always tell us in the old days they would dry it out in the sun on cookie sheet. He didn't like doing it that way because of all the bugs that would end up in it. Now you have like hard rock candy that can be ground or pulverised into cranuler sugar.

Just memories now. A very time comsuming and energy intentsive process. Just might have to do it again someday.

"A short time ago the company that processes the beets tried to get the farmers to buy the processing plants. Some wanted to, but others are hesitant. There's gotta be a reason to part with the money cow. The reason is that foreign cane sugar is likely to be brought in which would destroy the sugar market."

I suspect the company is looking down the road to what might happen with Cuba after Fidel Castro dies. If the trade embargos are lifted their cane sugar would become available to the U.S., likely increasing supply, thus decreasing prices to U.S. producers.

There are a lot of processes in the sugar making method that is employed by large sugar factories. One that I was involved in was the lime kiln. We baked limestone rock and mixed it with water to produce what is called milk of lime.

It was then shot into a large tank with an agitator and the beet juice was mixed with it. I am not sure how the process worked, but it was used to remove impurities from the beet juice. The sugar was refined a couple of times, and we produced both brown and white sugar.

A very nasty job working in the limekiln, but I was sure of a job every campaign, because no one else wanted it. All the rock shoveling did great things for my shoulders and abs though. lol

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I would like to try making beet sugar also. I tap maple trees every year and I always run out by the end of summer. We use the syrup in our coffee every morning..YUM!
I would try roasting the beets in large trays on an outdoor grill, after they cool they would be easy to mush up (assuming they cook the same as regular garden beets) then add water and boil outside like maple syrup, then strain and press the pulp.
A question for WY White Wolf: do you remember if the beet syrup tasted good without adding maple syrup or juice? I would be happy with the syrup if it was sweet and tasty enough.

Any ideas on boiling it down to syrup in a maple evaporator?

njredneckgirl: How many maple trees do you need to keep yourself in coffee syrup for that much of the year?

It was good to me. But then I ate sugar beets raw out of the field. Just tasted like a sugar water with a little hint of beet.

We didn't have maple trees in Montana so I never learned how to make maple syrup. I always imagined boiling down of the syrup was similar to making maple syrup but don't know.

Could be. The US keeps sugar prices high to protect industry here and encourage friendly behavior from sugar producing countries. That's the only reason HFCS is economical.

Naturally it means that we all pay more for sugar, too.

OmaMutti: This year we tapped about 8 trees and boiled down twice, only making 2 gallons. We boiled down 120 gallons of sap for the 2 gallons. In Vermont I've heard it only takes 40 gallons of sap.

I would call the syrup grade C : deep and very dark color and outstanding maple flavor, I can't stand grade A fancy light syrup anymore.

To answer your question: two gallons lasts us about 6-7 months just using it in our coffee. Ultimately I would like to produce 10 gallons a year for us so I can use it in canning and baking too. I have the trees but I need to spend lots of $$$ for a real evaporator. I am considering honeybees for next year also.