Ihave planted some tooand want to know also
Are they called milo?
I got the seeds from a fresh flower arrangement.
The seeds are the size of lentil, but red and round.
The plant looks like those brooms.
I wonder if that is the one. But it will be a while though.

Milo is a grain sorghum. Molasses is made from cultivars like Black Amber, Sugar Drip, Simon etc.
Sorghum mills use steel rollers. Perhaps sometime like an old wringer washer with the rollers replaced with steel ones. Don't know if you can generate enough pressure. Be forewarned that making sorghum molasses is more than a notion.

Here is a link that might be useful: Making Sorghum Molasses

Thanks Farmerdilla

I had the impression that milo is what they juice to make sorghum. Too bad.

Yeah, It would definetely be a chore to make sorghum molasses, although it is very delicious and has a distinctive flavor. Milo is grain sorghum, I was under the impression that black amber was a broom corn but on further investigation I was wrong about that one. I want to grow a few plants of sorghum this summer just for fun. It gets big and is a great plant to attrack lady bugs.. steve

farmerdilla,

Making 200 quarts of toma-to juice is also mo-re than a notion! But I did that last year. Hey, I'm 55 years old and have never made sorghum syrup, and I'm not going to learn to do any younger.

I'm growing Mennonite Sorghum, hopefully about 20-30 plants. A wise man once told me there is nothing to it but to do it - but that was his sto-ck answer for anything new I wanted to try!

Mike

Sorry about having to insert hyphens in words but I'm mo-re sorry the owners of this site feel it is their right and prerogative to add links that I may not condone to my posts.

Thanks mike I thought you had hick-ups. Sorry could not pass it up, I really tried!

Curt :-)

Re: the advertising hyper-text on some key words. Small price to pay for these wonderful forums. "No free lunch", as they say. Another gardening website that I have enjoyed requires a SUBSCRIPTION to participate in the discussions. I can't afford to pay the price. I CAN easily IGNORE the new colored hyper-text in these forums. If they can make enough to cover expenses, then more power to them.

To the OP, I grew about 100' row of sweet sorghum in 2008. As a trial, I put enough of it through my juicer (just a cheap, $50 model from Target) to end up with a scant half cup of syrup. It did work, but it seemed to clog up the juicer with every cane, so I had to open it up and clean out the fiber frequently.

However, I discovered I just don't like the flavor of sorghum syrup -- sort of a grassy taste, kind of like boiling hay would be, I guess. So, I didn't make any more.

I do, however, like sorghum flour, and found the seeds easy to harvest, clean, and they are soft and grind easily in my mill into a nice flour.

One year at the harvest festival at El Rancho de las Golondrinas, a living history museum near Santa Fe, NM, I saw small scale harvesting of sorgum. They did indeed use rollers, which I took to be wringer washer rollers. They were hand-cranked, with a sheet metal tray to feed the stalks into the rollers, a catch pan to catch the juice, and a metal tray on the far side to direct the waste into a low wagon. The juice was drawn off periodically and taken to the boiling station, where it was boiled down just as maple syrup is boiled.

Here's a book, through Southern Exposure Seed exchange, http://www.southernexposure.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=91134&Category_Code=SORG

Check this out: http://www.syrupmakers.com/

Yup, I've looked into this, too.

Catherine

Here is a link that might be useful: Sorgum Processing

Supposedly, a good harvest is suppose to yield 5,000 gallons of juice per acre with an acre being 100,000-110,000 plants.

I was in a tool rental place today and may have found a simple way of smashing the canes - use one of those hand rollers they rent to people who want to make repairs to asphalt. Yeah, I would have to clean it real good and build a tray for the juice to run down but that wouldn't be hard. Luckily, I have seven months or so to figure it out!

Mike

When I lived on a farm in Missouri we grew milo as a cash crop. It was sold as a feed grain.

Real sorghum syrup is the best stuff in the world. I never see it here in Colorado and I miss it!

jnfr, You say you grew milo. Did you use the cane to extract juice from?
I know, Missoiri sorghum is famous. I have lived in SW MO.

ANOTHER QUESTION: where can I get yhe seeds for sorghum syrup plants?

No, we didn't extract it. We sold the grain for a cash crop. But around Missouri there were producers of regular sorghum syrup, and oh my! It was wonderful stuff.

I cannot say exactly where you'd get seeds. If I were still in the country I'd probably ask at my local feed store.

Baker Creek - rareseeds.com

Mennonite Sorghum: A Mennonite heirloom from Missouri. The tall canes are juiced and boiled to make a very sweet, light, sorghum syrup, excellent on pancakes. This variety gives good yields and also produces lots of grain.

$3.00 per pack of seeds (at least 50). I probably got 65-70 seeds.

Mike

Southern Exposure doesn't have Milo, but they do have several other types. I am trying it too this year. I thought it would be fun to cut the canes into sticks for the kids (and me...) to chew on, we'll see how it goes!

I'm surprised that no one has responded with much information about sorgham molasses. I'm no expert but have seen and been around molasses for many years. It's quite a drawn out process
I admire people who want to experiment and expand their foods and knowledge and don't want to discourage anyone, but I would advise anyone anticipzating producing their own sorgham to first be sure they like it. It has it's own distinctive flavor not at all similar to maple or corn syrup. It's available off the shelf at most supermarkets, at least throughout the South. Buy a snall jar and try it.
I suppose you could make syrup from any of the grain stalks; milo, grain sorgham or even corn as they all have sugary juices in their green stalks, and I guess there are different varieties of molasses sorgham but I don't know.
I know it needs be harvested when the stallks are mature with almost mature grain heads on top but before the leaves begin to turn brown. Strip all the leaves off the stalk and crush the stalks thuroghly. They have mule powered steel roller machines throughout the South for this but I suppose it could be done with a large mallet. Twist the stalks tightly to squeeze all the juice possible from them.
Cook slowly at low heat to evaporate the water. As it slowly decreases in volume you can add more juice and keep cooking. It takes about ten gallons of juice to make one gallon of molasses. Use a copper or stainless container NOT aluminum. They have hugh copper pans with segmented channels to slowly move the juice from the entry at one end to the completed product at the other end all heated over a wood burning furnace for this. Stir continuously to reduce sticking. When it reaches the consistancy of corn syrup, pour into clean glass or steel containers and realize that it will get thicker as it cools.
Good luck and give us a report of your experience. Lol

Thanks ted.

I may or may not like the taste and I'm sure the effort will be mo-re than its worth. But a bunch - make that the most - of fun is learning, experimenting and as you ask, reporting the results. I figure that at the worst, I'll puke, but geeze, from what I have heard, back in my col-lege days, people did this with some drugs (peyote buttons) and enjoyed the experience!

Mike

Had to add a hyphen to mo-re and col-lege so this ad words crap added by money-hungry operators of this site cannot add links I may not approve of to my posts. But I cannot advertise my site - go figure!

Try to grow a minimum of 50 plants. That is how much you need to make between 1 and 2 gallons of syrup. The best rollers are professionally made jobs. Unfortunately, they are hard to find these days. Sandhill also has a decent selection of varieties.

DarJones

Here is a link that might be useful: Sandhill

Feed that milo to your pigs. Eat bacon and ham. You and the pig had a good time, while it lasted.

Tom

I moved here from Missouri, where I married into a farm family. They didn't make sorghum, but one of my MIL's sibs did on her farm and shared with the whole family. It's pretty much all we used to sweeten with, since it was free. Ironically, my husband and I were discussing sorghum molasses today, because we were setting the maples up to tap and I got to reminiscing.

I can still buy sorghum from one of the local Amish stores, and it's still as blechy as I remember it. I think you'd call it an acquired taste, only I never acquired it. I ate it, skinning my teeth back and holding my nose. LOL. It does sadden me, however, to see family farm sorghum making becoming a lost art. But, I do not miss seeing the quart jars of the nasty brown stuff in the pantry.

calliope,

PM me your addy and if I have enough, I'll send you some just to remind you how much you don't miss it!

Mike