Breckinridge County KyArchives History .....Sorghum Making 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Dana Brown http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00005.html#0001067 September 23, 2006, 4:17 pm

Book Title: A Glimpse Of The Past

Cane was grown for food for livestock, and also for making sorghum or molasses, 
a breakfast delicacy for more than a century.  It was grown and cultivated as 
were other row grown crops.  It reached a height of six to eight feet and 
ripened during early fall, at which time it was ready for extracting the sweet 
juice from the pulp of the stalk and processing it into sorghum.  It was either 
cut or left standing and stripped of its long grass like blades and the seed 
heads were cut off and saved for seed and food for birds and fowls.  The blades 
were tied in bundles and fed to livestock during the winter months.  When the 
bi-products were disposed of, molasses making time had arrived.

The stalks were cut close to the ground and hauled to the processing plant at a 
nearby location for extracting the juice and cooking until it becamse sorghum.  
The cane mill, mounted on wheels for moving, was made of two metal cylinders, 
ten incehs in diameter and twelve to sixteen inches in length and mounted 
upright over a convex plate at the base to catch and flow the juice into a 
strainer covered tub, ready for cooking.  The rollers were fastened at the top 
by a series of cogs fitted to an upright shaft on which a long preshaped wooden 
timber sweep was balanced and attached.  The rollers were geared to rotate 
toward each other, so as to crush the stalks and squeeze out the juice as they 
fed betweenthem.  A draft animal, usually a horse, was hitched to the end of 
the sweep, turned the cylinder as it traveled in circles around the mill.

Cooking the dark green juice into sorghum molasses was done by either of two 
different methods, the box or evaporator cooking.  The box method was so 
called, when all the juice was emptied into the vat and cooked to the desired 
density in one operation.  The evaporator was partitioned at regular intervals 
through out its length with gates or openings on every partition, alternated to 
control the flow of juice as it meandered through the channels to the finishing 
compartment, where it was completed and drawn off into containers ready for 
market or home consumption.  The cooking vats were placed over a furnace and 
fired by wood.  A barrel, elevated above the cookers, controlled the flow of 
juice as needed. 

As the juice began to simmer, a dark scum formed on top, which had to be 
skimmed off to ensure bright, clear sorghum, one attendant was kept busy 
skimming off this scum and emptying it into th skimming hole.  Anyone 
unfortunate enough to fall or step into one of these vats can vouch for the 
unpleasan sensation from such a plunge.

Stir off time was a community affair.  All the parents brought their children 
to the gala affair, to talk, play and eat skimmings.  This was a thick, light 
brown formation that came to the top of the molasses when they were finished 
and put into containers.  It remained intil the sorghum cooled, then dissolved 
and became molasses.  While in this brown state, it had a glavor and texture 
inviting to all gathered for the occasion.  Sppons, paddles or a section of 
cane stalk were all the paraphernalia needed to take part in this tasty 
repast.  As in all overindulgence in foods, the functioning of nature becomes 
unbalances and this can happen to over eaters at stir off time, resulting in 
embarrassment to the victims and more laundering for the housewives. 

It is believe that sorghum molasses came into prominence in the late 1850s.  
This was before the time of refined sugar was readily available, and the 
sorghum was used in all types of cookies, cakes, bread and even rum.

Fifty gallon of cane syrup will make seven gallon of sorghum molasses.
Millions of gallons were produced by the later part of the 1900s.
Few people make sorghum today.  It is very tasty on a buttered biscuit.

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ky/breckinridge/history/other/sorghumm159gms.txt

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