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Family Continues Tradition Of Making Sugar Cane Syrup
Gene McNabb of Pine Grove, La., gets his family involved every year in a family tradition of making sugar cane syrup. The 87-year-old remembers when he was a boy and his family extracted about 500 gallons of syrup from an acre, and it sold for 50 cents a gallon. He still has the horse-powered sugar cane grinder that was used to crush the juice out of the cane, although these days his family uses an antique mill converted to run off a tractor’s pto.
Gene’s son, John McNabb, has Haflinger ponies that he hopes to use on the old grinder in the future. It will add to the family gathering that includes his dad, himself, his brothers, a sister and their children.
“We’ve been making syrup as a hobby for a long time,” he says, explaining that the event takes place after a hard freezing frost that drives higher sugar content into the stalk. In Louisiana that’s anywhere between the first week of November into December.
Using a square-ended sugar cane machete, leaves are stripped off the cane before the cane stalks are cut and loaded on a trailer. They are run through a cane grinder and the juice is strained before going into a 300-gal. stainless steel pan on top of a firebox with a hot wood fire. As the dregs rise to the top, they are skimmed off.
“Once the water evaporates out, you have a thick solution boiling in the pan. It will fluff up and you really have to be careful or it can boil over the side of the pan,” McNabb says.
As soon as it hits 228º F, they put out the fire with a garden hose, and the syrup is emptied from a spout at the bottom of the pan into a stainless steel pot to cool slightly before filling bottles with the golden syrup. Depending on the weather, the process can take anywhere from 8 to 16 hrs.
“It takes 7 to 9 gal. of juice to make 1 gal. of syrup,” McNabb says, noting that the syrup has a brown sugar flavor.
The cane stubble grows back the following spring and with proper care the cane produces syrup for 4 or 5 years.
During the syrup-making gatherings, the McNabb family enjoys some of the syrup on biscuits made by McNabb’s daughter, along with meals of gumbo and other Louisiana cuisine. The family splits up the rest of the syrup for personal use and to give as gifts.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Gene McNabb, 5021 Hwy. 449, Pine Grove, La. 70453 (cmix1982@yahoo.com).



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2021 - Volume #45, Issue #2