As this blogger writes, I too have planted sugar maples, bought stevia seed to gro indoors (and in my future greenhouse), and plan to add bees. But this article has me adding yet another way to add sugar to my homestead. Sugar beets! Read on...
"It started like this. In my quest for self-sufficiency, I wanted to have the
ability to produce my own sugar if need be. I planned on adding bees to the
farmstead this last spring – but ‘we’ spent money on a new chainsaw instead.
My next thought was maple trees? Not unless I could pay to put in a bunch of 10
year-old sugar maple tress, hope they all lived, then maybe in another 10-15
years I would have some young smallish trees I might be able to tap. Stevia
plants? I found out, not only do they not grow in my zone, but I have noticed
through watching my friend’s attempts that they are rather finicky to grow
indoors and don’t like big shifts in temperature. That wouldn’t work in our
house with wood heat. Then I found my answer through my grandma.
Sugar Beets. They used to grow them when my grandma was a
kid – but not just a couple of rows of them, they would plant a small field of
them. She said that when they used the sugar from them, it was always like
using super dark brown sugar. So if you were using it in something like white
cake or egg nog, that it would darken the color of what you were making but she
remembered it still tasted really good. She said they processed them outside,
because they smelled a little. Sugar beets contain 10-16% sucrose, compared to
a sugar maple sap at 2% – this is why you need up to 40 gallons of sugar maple
sap boiled down to make one gallon of maple syrup. The process is a tad quicker
with sugar beets."
Read more at... http://americanpreppersnetwork.com/2012/12/how-to-make-your-own-sugar.html
"It started like this. In my quest for self-sufficiency, I wanted to have the
ability to produce my own sugar if need be. I planned on adding bees to the
farmstead this last spring – but ‘we’ spent money on a new chainsaw instead.
My next thought was maple trees? Not unless I could pay to put in a bunch of 10
year-old sugar maple tress, hope they all lived, then maybe in another 10-15
years I would have some young smallish trees I might be able to tap. Stevia
plants? I found out, not only do they not grow in my zone, but I have noticed
through watching my friend’s attempts that they are rather finicky to grow
indoors and don’t like big shifts in temperature. That wouldn’t work in our
house with wood heat. Then I found my answer through my grandma.
Sugar Beets. They used to grow them when my grandma was a
kid – but not just a couple of rows of them, they would plant a small field of
them. She said that when they used the sugar from them, it was always like
using super dark brown sugar. So if you were using it in something like white
cake or egg nog, that it would darken the color of what you were making but she
remembered it still tasted really good. She said they processed them outside,
because they smelled a little. Sugar beets contain 10-16% sucrose, compared to
a sugar maple sap at 2% – this is why you need up to 40 gallons of sugar maple
sap boiled down to make one gallon of maple syrup. The process is a tad quicker
with sugar beets."
Read more at... http://americanpreppersnetwork.com/2012/12/how-to-make-your-own-sugar.html
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