Sorghum cane mill?

[L Ross]

Snowy day today, and besides me making P.K.'s bread recipe, my wife threw together a batch of ginger sorghum cookies. We helped a neighbor cut, mill, and cook off 13 gallons of sorgum syrup a couple of years ago. We are about out of the gallon we had. I want to make my own and am looking for a cane mill. I'd like to run it off the p.t.o. or with a belt and of course I really don't want to spend an arm and a leg for one. I'd be willing to travel to pick one up in or around Wisconsin.
If one of you fellow casters has one you be willing to part with I also have a lot of lead and would be up for some trading or cash.

Duke

[DLCTEX]

Ours went to scrap metal long ago.:( I wish I had kept it, but that would have been hard to do through the changes in my life.

[John Allen]

Duke, I read an article on making sorghum it sure seems interesting. hope you find one.

[RoyEllis]

Boy, does this bring back some memories! I'll never forget swingin' a scythe all day cutting sorgum cane, tying it in shocks & hauling it to the local mill (powered by donkeys no less). Makes my stomach jump...remembering fresh churned butter mixed with molasses & smeared on a nice hot biscuit.

[dbosman]

I have an interest in sufficient, appropriate technology. L Ross' question about obtaining a mill made me look up cane mills. The appear to be simple geared roller assemblies. They also appear to be solid, really solid, heavy metal machines. Outside pictures, I've no idea what sorghum or sugar cane ready for pressing looks like, feels like, or weighs. Do the rollers need to be that heavy for the job?
Is this the sort of project one could go at by casting aluminum gears in sand molds, weld them on to sections of well casing, and then assembly in to a metal frame?
Thanks for my continuing education.

[cloakndagger]

When we moved the family mill to our house so it could be under a shed it weighed in at about 2600 lbs, cast iron, made in 1890. Still works, thanks to years of beeswax and lard. It is a pretty simple double roller affair, some of the newer ones 1900 or so, had flanged rollers that really got the juice out but you ended up with more trash in your mill run. Torque was decided by the length of pole you put on the drive head, and the power source. I tell ya though, im glad i can go to the store to get molasses and "sawgum" as we call it... stirring that pan all day was not a fun job, niether was cutting endless cords of wood to feed the fire, only good part was after cleanup when you had a pile of molasses crystals leftover to suck on.

[km101]

I dont think aluminum gears would hold up to the strain. The sorghum cane (sugar cane) is pretty tough. It is about the same size and shape as bamboo, but not as tough and has long ribbon type leaves. To crush it enough to extract the juice, you would need a hard, heavy roller set. It would need to be low geared with plenty of torque to prevent clogging if you got several stalks in the rollers.

I think I know where there is an old mill (if it is not rusted apart) but it is down close to Jacksonville, TX so I dont think you would want to drive that far. :)

Best of luck with your project!

[L Ross]

The one the neighbor used was borrowed from another local old farmer who doesn't use it but won't part with it. Talk about a cobbled up device. It has a p.t.o. shaft jury rigged to an old GMC truck transmission. That transmission is put in reverse gear and the tractor powering it just idles along. The three crushing rollers pull the cane in,(fed in root end first), the juice drains down onto a piece of old corrugated metal and that runs into 5 gallon buckets. We cooked in a pan over a wood fire in an arch just like cooking maple syrup. Instead of 40 to 80 gallons of maple sap per gallon of finished syrup, sorghum runs more like 8 gallons juice to a gallon of syrup. Since we were doing this for personal use it was all good fun. The leaf removal, followed a day later by the cutting and trimming the seed heads, milling, cooking, skimming, stirring, and finishing was all a nice social event. Just like a lot of the self sufficient skills we reloader/casters practice.

Duke

[Shooter]

If you find one of the old top drive horse and mule mills, you can run it with a 3-point post hole digger with the auger removed. Idle the tractor.

[alrighty]

I seem to remember a guy years ago using a old wringer type washing machine for a mill.

[Dale in Louisiana]

An idea comes to mind: Metal-forming rolls are easy to find and have a lot in common with the came mills I know. You can even buy cheap Chinese ones at Harbor Freight, but good American iron is likely to show up as machine shops close. They're a lot wider than a cane mill, since they're made for form sheets of steel, but they can definitely take the pressure, they're geared low, and some are already powered up with electric motors. Add a sheet-metal tray to catch and carry off the juice and you might have something.

dale in Louisiana

[pipehand]

Its been a while since I took Rt 52 up through Gold Hill, NC toward Salisbury, but I do remember a vertical, mule pole driven sorghum mill on the west side of the road. I do believe it was used every year.

[pipehand]

My remembering was off. The mill is actually 3.5 miles north of 74 on Rt 601 in NC. It'll be on the left. Had the opportunity to head that way last week.

[dbosman]

Depending on the quantity ordered, price for Chinese, electric sugar cane mills is
FOB Price: US $260 - 5,000 / Set Get Latest Price
Port: Qingdao
Minimum Order Quantity: 1 Set/Sets sugar cane crushing mill is available.
Supply Ability: 200 Set/Sets per Month sugar cane crushing mill is available.
Payment Terms: L/C,T/T

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/699652807/Best_Seller_Manual_or_Electric_Automatic.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB-iUCZ7ysQ

[pipehand]

Depending on the quantity ordered, price for Chinese, electric sugar cane mills is
FOB Price: US $260 - 5,000 / Set Get Latest Price
Port: Qingdao
Minimum Order Quantity: 1 Set/Sets sugar cane crushing mill is available.
Supply Ability: 200 Set/Sets per Month sugar cane crushing mill is available.
Payment Terms: L/C,T/T

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/699652807/Best_Seller_Manual_or_Electric_Automatic.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB-iUCZ7ysQ
OK, great, that's for the electric ones. Now, whatcha gonna do to justify keeping a mule?

[dbosman]

...
Never mind.

[L Ross]

Hey thanks for the link dbosman. I'll take a look. I do get a kick out of using older tech though. All my black smithing gear is late 19th and early 20th century, come to think of it my favorite firearms are also.

Duke

[dbosman]

Glad to be of service. Apparently in India and China, iced, freshly squeezed cane juice is a vending cart and small restaurant treat.
How about a dog wheel powered one for fairs and festivals.. With a back up electric motor.

[x101airborne]

Wish you were closer, you could use mine. It is at my grandparents old place, where the cooker pans, and home made foam scrapers etc are also. The old sorghum field is long gone and over grown with weeds, but lots of fond memories. Mine is a mule driven one also. Granddad would never let me put the cane in the press. That was his job and his alone. My job was to ride the mule and keep him moving steady. (I was 10). When the first of the molasses came off before the sulfur was added to the cook, Grandma would make a HUGE batch of fresh molasses cookies. You could always tell when the cookies were done, all the grandkids disappeared! And of course, Grandpa fussed saying she was using too much molasses, etc. Then he would take his tobacco twists and use a cup of molasses and a cup of brandy or whiskey, I forget now, and paint them well with a rag, then hang them in the root cellar next to the bacon and sausage. The old fridge down there had a couple sodas in it. But I mainly went down there for the smell. That is why I asked for the molasses press. I probably wont use it, but it is a memory of mine.

[Dale in Louisiana]

Glad to be of service. Apparently in India and China, iced, freshly squeezed cane juice is a vending cart and small restaurant treat.
How about a dog wheel powered one for fairs and festivals.. With a back up electric motor.

Raw sugar cane, cut in chunks and outside skin removed, was a treat when I was a kid and one could find vendors selling blue ribbon cane at roadside stands.

That cane is much different from the varieties grown for sugar production today.

dale in Louisiana

[drinks]

Remember, ribbon cane is sugar cane, sorghum is grain sorghum.
My GP grew about an acre of "Sugar Drip" sorghum most years, His mill and pans are long gone but I sure remember GM's buttermilk biscuits, sweet cream butter and home cured bacon for breakfast.