Sugar Cane Cooker and Press - Zolfo Springs, Florida, USA - Household Appliances and Presses on Waymarking.com

Located in front of the Cracker Trail Museum in the Pioneer Park at Zolfo Springs is an old fashioned cane grinder and cooker. This grinder and cooker were used in pioneer days to produce cane syrup from raw sugar cane.

The process started with the sugar cane stalks being fed into the cane grinder to extract the juice. This grinder utilized a mule to turn the gears on the grinder.

The juice was collected and then taken to a large fire heated kettle and boiled until it rendered a thick syrup. This process from start to finish would take approximately 6 hours with 4 of those hours reserved for the cooking process. On average, it would take 80 gallons of sugar cane juice to make 10 gallons of syrup. It was then cooled and bottled to be later used as sweetener in cooking and dining.

The photos in the gallery show the cane cooker with a fire pit beneath it and the cane grinder with the armature for attaching a mule to work the gears in the grinder.



Cane Grinding - produced Syrup, Candy and Cane Beer
In the fall, from October through the end of the year was “cane-grinding time” – the time that the cane cut and cane syrup was produced. Every farmer has a small mill on his farm for pressing the cane to extract the juice, which was cooked down in kettles to make syrup. Production of quality cane syrup could be quite profitable for local farmers.

CANE GRINDING TIME
Once the air gets cooler, the blades of the tall sugar cane are ready to be taken to the cane mill, which is composed of two big iron rollers set vertically on a pine log frame. There is a curved wooden "lever" along with an iron kettle which is set in clay.

Wooden paddles, sharpened on one edge, are used to strip the leaves from the standing cane. A stroke with a butcher or drawing-knife takes off the top and with an adz or hoe the stalks are cut.
Then they are loaded on the handy ox-cart and dumped at the mill. A mule is hitched to the end of the lever with a plow gear and begins walking the tread-mill round, ending late at night. A youngster too small for heavy work might be selected to feed and, with home-made mitts, to temper the cold stalks. Between the slowly turning rollers goes the smaller end causing the mill to creak and groan. Suddenly a snap of splitting stalk and the juice gushes forth, and runs into a barrel, covered with layers of sackcloth to catch the impurities.

On the other side of the mill the cane pulp (pommy) falls and this is carried off by the feeder's assistant, who also keeps the pile of cane replenished. When there is a kettle full of juice a fire of lightwood Is started in the furnace and soon the flames rise up. As the juice boils the foreign matter arises in scum, which is carefully skimmed off. Gradually the color changes from a dirty green to a rich amber and then to a golden red, creating a sweet fragrance that permeates the air.

Then help is called and the fire drawn; hastily two men dip the boiling liquid into pails which are emptied into a trough (hewn from a cypress log). As soon as the syrup is out, fresh juice which is ready at hand is poured into the kettle and the work goes on. In a few days when the "skimmings" ferment — there is cane beer, delicious with its sweet-sour taste, and still later "buck" from the same stuff, now at a stage when only the initiated can appreciate it, ready for the hard drinker or the wild-cat still.
Transcribed from sign

Address: Florida Cracker Trail Museum and Village 2822 Museum Drive Zolfo Springs, Florida 33890 Website for additional information: [Web Link] Website for Museum/Business: [Web Link] Admission: $2.00 for museum. Free to view outside exhibits Business Hours: Museum hours: Monday - Friday 8am - 5pm, outside exhibits: Sunrise to sunset

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Date Logged Log   02/25/2024 stevepre2 visited it