Harvesting Sugar Cane

[elouicious]

Hey All-

With the Temps nearing freezing in Texas it is officially time to harvest sugar cane-



A big shoutout to D-Grower on here who I bought the cuttings from a very long time ago at this point- I believe it is either the malaysian or florida red variety which you can see in the stalks-



First was the chop-





Next was cleaning-









Removing the exterior portion was a massive amount of labor-



But the cleaned up product looked nice and was very tasty for chewing-



Then 2 days of boiling, pour off, reduce and repeat-





And the final product-

[sbtropic]

How good is the final product? How will you use it?

[elouicious]

Let me just say sugar should be way more expensive for the amount of labor that went into this-

The final product is quite tasty though- and the red color is a real nice bonus-

I will mostly use it to sweeten cocktails or juices, maybe for a coffee or two-

I also have a dehydrator and might try to take some down to the crystalline form but this again is more work

[eNorm]

This is a great pictorial but it does sound like quite a bit of work.  Could you elaborate on the below process a little?  I'm having trouble visualizing.  Is it multiple batches being boiled down or one batch?

"2 days of boiling, pour off, reduce and repeat-"

Thanks!

[vall]

Sounds like making stock from bones.

Why do you need to peel the outside layer, is it bitter?

[spaugh]

way easier to use a sugatcane press and then boil it down if your goal is to make syrup.  One 6ft cane makes about a pint of super sweet juice. 

the also sell a hand tool for peeling it like a carrot.  makes it much easier if you want to eat it. 

[elouicious]

This is a great pictorial but it does sound like quite a bit of work.  Could you elaborate on the below process a little?  I'm having trouble visualizing.  Is it multiple batches being boiled down or one batch?

"2 days of boiling, pour off, reduce and repeat-"

Thanks!

This is the tricky part-

I covered the stalks with water once and boiled for 45 minutes, After tasting one of the stalks it was still quite sweet so I decided to pour it off into a smaller stockpot and re-cover the stems- I then boiled again until the color and sweetness was gone from them.

As Brad mentioned a sugar cane press would have been the much more efficient way to do this but I don't have one

[NewGen]

Do you have to re-propagate sugarcane every spring? Do they regrow/resprout by themselves?
Thanks,

[elouicious]

They regrow from the roots!

I have them in a pot to prevent them from invading into places I don't want

[Plantinyum]

They regrow from the roots!

I have them in a pot to prevent them from invading into places I don't want

about this, i dunno if its related to varieties or smt, but one grower in australia that has a gardening channel  grows alot of sugar cane and the plants do not seem to spread at all. They just grow at clumps which seem to do grow in size, but very slowly.
U should try to plant one and see if its a runner or a clumper, in ground u will get a bigger cropp and each cane will grow bigger.

[NewGen]

A few years ago I bought a short section off ebay that was labeled as black Thai variety. I got a bunch of sugarcane sticks that  grew from that section. Very crunchy and super sweet. Height was about 5'. Winter came, high 30s to low 40s in my area, so I harvested most of the bunch. I left about 4 of them and they survived the cold but never became thick and fully mature like those that I harvested. Spring came and no new growth took place, the survivors were thin and weak. Not sure what I could've done to keep it going. I'm gonna try again this spring.

[Galatians522]

To my knowledge, all commonly grown varieties of sugarcane are clumping. There might be some wild relatives with running tendencies, but I am in aware of any in cultivation with that form of growth. Also, some varieties ratoon (sprout from the roots better then others). Some will continue to re-grow for 100 years or more. Others sprout poorly and decline after a few years. Commercial cane fields are tilled in and re-planted after 3-4 year typically. I think some of that is due to overcrowding, though, which is not as much of an issue for a homeowner. Adequate levels of moisture and fertility thend to encourage ratooning. Excessive cold and flooding discourage it.

[simon_grow]

Nice harvest, check out this thread for some info on sugarcane juicers.

https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=827.msg336723;topicseen#msg336723

My juicer still works great and I use it frequently every year.

Simon

[D-Grower]

Very cool project man! I need to try and make some cane syrup eventually. I usually just chew pieces that get cut off while propagating them. Maybe this coming season I'll have bunches of canes to mess with.