Saturday, November 08, 2003

For Ann-Marie: To Free Up Her Thanksgiving

SUGAR BEETS TO SUGAR... (at home.)

1. Clean the sugar beets. (two 8-10 pound beets)
2. Slice it up small.
3. Cover with water and boil for about an hour until it's mushy.
4. Strain the juice, reserve the pulp.
Purify the Juice
5. Use about a 1/2 cup of milk of lime (acting as calcium hydroxide) and a shot of seltzer water (acting as carbon dioxide).
6. Let juice set for about 2 hours. (semi-solids will settle to the bottom)
7. Pour off the water on top (this can be fed to livestock)
8. Sugar mass is left... cook it very slowly and carefully. It will take about an hour and a half for it to turn think and molasses-black.
Seperation of the refined sugar from the molasses
9. Put the molasses gunk into a procolator (juicer) and make sure the lid's on tight.
10. The spinning with throw the white sugar into the bowl of the juicer and the molasses gunk drips out the spout.
11. The sugar will be a bit damp so allow it to air out a bit.
12. You now have about a cup and a half of refined sugar!

And that my friends is how you get sugar from sugar beets! Ta-da!!!

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