Emporia Area Local Food Network
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Looking for local sorghum syrup

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Looking for local sorghum syrup Empty Looking for local sorghum syrup

Post  Ben Stallings Tue Apr 21, 2009 10:13 am

Does anyone know where to buy local (Kansas) sorghum syrup?

Ben Stallings

Posts : 22
Join date : 2009-03-18

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Looking for local sorghum syrup Empty Local Sorghum

Post  Shep Sun May 24, 2009 8:50 pm

Kansas used to have many small sorghum syrup producers. Alma and Alta Vista both had "Molasses Days" celebrations at one time, as did many other small towns. Most sorghum farms were put out of business by new government regulations several years ago (much like small dairies folded when new regs were enforced).

I learned to make sorghum while staying with a farm family in Arkansas many years ago. The old man and his wife had a horse drawn sorghum press. I went out to the fields and with a corn knife harvested a pickup load of sorghum cane and brought it back to the press. We spent a day running the stalks through the press until we had a 55 gallon barrel full. Then we poured it into an open flat pan with a wood fire under it and heated and skimmed it all day long. It was a community/neighborhood doings, and everybody helped and swapped stories and had fun. Today you can't sell it or give it away unless you have stainless steel everything, temperature controlled monitoring, etc.

I have heard that there is or was a sorghum producer in southeast Kansas, but have yet to track down that info. We currently purchase wholesale sorghum from an Iowa farmily farm, "Maasdam's," that we resell to our customers. It comes in various sizes from small sampler to about gallon size.

Lots of cooks and bakers use sorghum in baking breads and cookies. It is the secret to boston baked beans and barbecued beans. We used to mix it about 50/50 and spread it on fresh baked bread as an out-of-this-world sweetener.

I'd like to raise cane, but seems nobody will let me . . . .

Shep

Posts : 280
Join date : 2009-03-07

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