Growing beets of all kinds

[Taz Baby]

Has any one ever grown sugar beets? If so, can you tell us how to get the sugar out of them. In the SHTF I am going to want sugar and if I knew I could So call (GROW it). That would be great. I can live with honey in my coffee, tea, ect. But if I wanted to make a cake or something that honey just won't do and there is no more sugar and to cold to grow sugarcane then what?. I love beets of all kinds so growing them is not a problem but I think the sugar beet is the only kind that you can get sweetness from.

How to Make Sugar From Beets | eHow.com

[JustAPrepper]

I tried them this past fall but since our garden was a bust I got nothin'. You can google making sugar out of beets but its a lengthy process and takes a LOT of beets to do it from what I've read and the results are "iffy". My attempt was just to see if we could actually grow this particular variety. Unfortunately, I ended up with nothing and will have to try again later. On a side note...I got the seeds from Baker Creek if you need a source for the seeds.

***ETA...Ooops...I didn't see you already had a link for making the sugar. My bad.

[IDTANDY]

Interesting

Sugar beet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"An unrefined sugary syrup can be produced directly from sugar beet. This thick, dark syrup is produced by cooking shredded sugar beet for several hours, then pressing the resulting sugar beet mash and concentrating the juice produced until it has the consistency similar to that of honey. No other ingredients are used. In Germany, particularly the Rhineland area, this sugar beet syrup (called Zuckerrüben-Sirup or Zapp in German) is used as a spread for sandwiches, as well as for sweetening sauces, cakes and desserts.

Commercially, if the syrup has a Dextrose Equivalency above 30 DE, the product has to be hydrolyzed and converted to a high-fructose syrup, much like high-fructose corn syrup, or iso-glucose syrup in the EU.

In Saint John, New Brunswick, sugar beet molasses is used as a de-icing product on the Harbour Bridge. The molasses has a lower melting point (-34 Celsius) than road salt and reduces corrosiveness.[15]

Many road authorities in North America now use de-sugared beet molases as de-icing or anti-icing products in winter control operations. The molases is typically combined with liquid chlorides and can either be applied directly to road surfaces or used to treat the salt spread on roads. The addition of the liquid to rock salt has several benefits; it reduces the bounce or scatter of the rock salt (keeping it where it is needed), it lowers the freezing point of the salt brine mix (so the de-icers remain effective at lower temperatures) and it reduces the activation time of the salt to begin the melting process. The molases used for this application is a waste product created when sugar beets are used to make commercial grade sugar. Reference: De-icing Roads with De-sugared Sugar Beet Molasses "

[Taz Baby]

Can you crystallize the sugar? Like maybe dehydrate it and crush it?

[carly]

You chop up the beets and boil them until you have all the juice out. The you remove the beets and keep boiling the juice. Let it reduce some then strain out the crystals. Keep reducing until you get as much sugar as possible out. It does take a good many beets to produce a lot of sugar. The first batch may be a learning process, but after that it is pretty simple. My Grampa used to do it.

[Taz Baby]

Is it like caramelizing?

[carly]

Kinda. After he strained out the first batch of crystals, he would lay them out on some doubled cheese cloth while he boiled down the rest of the liquid. This made sure the were dry. Grandma didn't like hefting the pot to strain it so, after she let it boil down part way, she let it cool then scraped the crystals off the side. Then she started the heat back and let it boil the rest of the way down. Let it cool and then scraped the pot. One thing though is that without the extra processing, you get brown sugar. It has kind of a Molasses taste to it

[Sniper-T]

I did a lot of research into this last year. I'll see if I can dig up my links and articles; but essentially everyone has pointed out the gist of it.

Even though I live in prime sugar beet growing area, I deemed it too much work to effectively do on my own, and even though I am as far away from sugar cane areas as possible. I am planning on planting some this year, as it seems like a more viable option for extracting sugar.

[Taz Baby]

well it sounds like to many beets for very little sugar to me. But still need to know how just in case. Also we have Maple tree's to tap into for syrup.

[Sniper-T]

A deciding factor for you, might be your ability to freeze them prior to processing. Rather then shreding them, or grating them by hand, the processors let them freeze solid, and then when they are brought inside to process they thaw into mush, which save a huge amount of labour.

Dropy may be able to add some insite to this as well. There is a Huge Sugar beet processing facility in his State, that handles millions of tons of Canadian sugar beets.