South Carolina Sorghum Boil 9-17-201 How its Done. Two weeks ago we cut a stand of Honey Drip sorghum in a field in Hopkins, S. C. Since that time it has been curing on a flat bed, concentrating sugars so they are in the 17-18 Brix range. On Wednesday evening, notice went out to a select few: gather at 8:00 a.m. at Oldfields Plantation for the cane crush and boil. The cane was ready. Joe Trapp, the midlands master of the mysteries of sorghum, would be imparting the knowledge he had gathered over 40+ years in the field, at the crusher, and at the evaporator pan to James Helms of Carolina Bay Farms. A trustworthy group of helpers were invited to assist: Chad Carter, Chuck Ross, Glenn Roberts, Hanna Raskin, Sharon Ray, and Glenn Roberts (who would provide lunch). Early in his career Joe Trapp used a mechanical crusher—an animal driven mechanism in which the mules marched in circles to provide the power. For the past twenty years he has employed a gas powered motor to drive the sturdy gears driving the crushing drums manufactured by Southern Plow Co. The countryside was veiled in fog when Trapp backed the bed of cane next to the crusher. Fifteen minutes of machine maintenance took place—washing the drums, clearing the tincture of rust from the spout, bolting a splay plate to the backside to draw the crushed cane away from the machine. After the test crush of a few canes, Joe Trapp motioned for the receiving tub to be positioned under the spout and a screen and cheese cloth laid over its mouth. He then took a pocket knife to carve off half of an oceanspray cranberry juice bottle to form an improvised funnel to concentrate the run off dead on the centerline of the bucket. At ten after 9:00 the crush began in earnest. James Helms carried the canes to me in bundles which I fed through the rollers. The immense force caused juice to jump free spattering the area. The canes were fed butt end first (all the stalks had been cut on a bias in the field to aid feeding). As it gushed from the spout, the cane juice looked greenish-gray with a yellow foam. Early in the process Trapp produced his hydrometer to gauge the sugar content of the juice, spreading drops of the liquid on the beveled glass surface of the device and eyeing the level indicated on the numbered scale through the eye piece. It was dialing in fine: between 17 and 18. Fine for syrup making. The whine of the crusher inhibited conversation, so for three hours, everyone worked quietly and efficiently. Joe Trapp produced a camp lounge chair from which to supervise the proceedings. At eleven, Trapp indicated it was time to position the evaporator pan on the fire pit. “Make it as level as possible. You want fire along the length of the pan. You are setting it up so the fire is going to be drawn to the back end.” He wanted dried sappy pine, but hard wood was what was available.” Once the pan had been positioned and sand shoveled to line the sides so that no heat and smoke escaped, the tubs of cane juice were poured and filtered into the evaporator. Two huge tubs filled the pan to the flange. James Helms and Chuck Ross were instructed to build the fire. Once going various metal plates and blocks were positioned to hinder the draw of the fire, to keep the heat along the whole underside of the pan. The juice cooked for four and one half hours, periodically stirred and constantly skimmed. Hanna Raskin (who had come up from Charleston to witness a sorghum boil for the Post and Courier), Glenn Roberts, Chad Carter, Chuck Ross, James Helms, Joe Trapp, Sharon Ray and I took turns with the skimmers. At first the cooking juice had a vegetal smell—somewhere between simmering green beans and muscadines being rendered into preserves. Greenish foam collected at the surface—at least three distinct expression at various points in the cooking. The scum was removed as soon as it emerged. During the long hours of skimming Joe Trapp regaled the company with tall tales, reminiscences of some of the more colorful midlands personalities he had known, comments on planting, reflections on the deer population, his decoration plans for his ‘man cave,’ and various reflections, philosophical and theological. Joe Trapp on the afterlife. “I’m not worried. I know how to handle bees. Had a apiary on the farm. And I can milk a cow. I hear heaven is a land of milk and honey. On the other hand . . . I know how to barbecue. I’ve got uses wherever I wind up!” After long cooking, the juice began to turn bronze, and the odor turned decidedly more sugary. Glenn Roberts had gone securing cream that had been milked earlier in the morning. He mingled the cream with hot sorghum and we dipped chunks of Portuguese sweet bread that Chad Carter had brought up from Charleston. (This way of first tasting a batch of sorghum hails from the Lindler family in the midlands.) Scrumptious. There was fried chicken, hash & rice, cole slaw and a Bradford watermelon for late lunch. At 4:45 Joe Trapp declared the sorghum cooked. The pan was brought to a level table and a spigot on the pan opened to drain it into a holding bin. This big was brought to a table and boxes of pint mason jars broken out for the sorghum to be parceled. The jars cool separated from one another as James and Sharon sit in satisfaction overlooking their bounty. They will have a pantry full of honey drip.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 12:08:48 +0000
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