# Raw Sugar Cane Juice



## NickyJ (3/1/15)

Almost 12 months ago I planted some sugar cane in my backyard and it's now getting to the point where I need to think about what the hell I'm going to do with it all.

Has anyone brewed with cane juice before? Is there anything to gain other than alcohol content? Given it's a completely raw product I'd like to speculate that there must be some goodies in there that will impart some interesting flavours but from what I've read it doesn't seem like it'll do much other than be completely fermented.

Is anyone willing to speculate on a good way to convert raw cane juice into something that will impart an interesting flavour in beer?


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## Mardoo (3/1/15)

Hmmm, seeing as rum made from cane juice tastes different from rum made from molasses tastes different from rum made with sugar I'm guessing there's more going on flavor-wise in a cane juice ferment than there would be from straight sugar. Might not be much. How about a cane juice and pineapple wine?


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## NickyJ (3/1/15)

Very good points!


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## Feldon (3/1/15)

You are travelling a seldom travelled path, it seems.

Have a read of this story from the Smithsonian Institution about an adventurous bloke on a quest to find fermented cane juice in the village market places of Ecuador, amid a sea of cane spirit, vinegar and other derivatives of sugar cane.


*[SIZE=medium]When Cane Juice Meets Yeast: Brewing in Ecuador[/SIZE]*

_[SIZE=medium]The sugarcane trail takes the author across the Andes, into home liquor distilleries and from juice shack to juice shack as he pursues fermented sugarcane wine[/SIZE]_

[SIZE=medium]By Alastair Bland [/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium] smithsonian.com [/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium] February 14, 2013 [/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]First, there was sugarcane juice. Then came distilled cane liquor, dribbling out of a steel pipe.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]And somewhere in between was the stuff I was interested in: fermented sugarcane juice touched by the ethanol-making labors of airborne yeasts and containing 8 to 9 percent alcohol by volume. But fully fermented cane drink with 8 or 9 percent alcohol by volume is not easy to find in Ecuador. I have been on the lookout for this stuff since Day 1 in Ecuador a month ago, when I began seeing extensive sugarcane fields, and I have yet to land a used plastic soda bottle filled with the beverage. The clear liquor—90-proof stuff, or thereabouts—whether commercially bottled or sold out of kitchens in Inca Kola bottles, is easy to find. Ditto for the raw, algae-green juice, which comes gurgling out of hand-cranked cane grinders on street corners in almost every town and is sold for 50 cents a cup.[/SIZE]





[SIZE=medium]Read more: [/SIZE][SIZE=medium]http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/when-cane-juice-meets-yeast-brewing-in-ecuador-18063279/#FMsk1wGW6z7VAhsK.99[/SIZE]

(PS & OT: One of the lead stories currently on the Smithsonian website's home page is about the physics of bubble formation in drinks - might interest some of the techno-brewers here)

EDIT:
And there was this 10 year old post that includes a sugar cane beer recipe from a site calling itself the Drugs Forum (but as much about rehabilitation and recovery from addiction than what you might think):

Some culture out there has to have drunk this? I can't imagine I'm the first person making beers out of sugar cane, yet I can't find any references to the stuff.

Current brew:
7-8 feet sugar cane
Yarrow flowers 1 cup
Calamus root, maybe 1/2 ounce, would have liked better quality and more root
Sweet Woodruff light packed cup dried
1 gallon of water
Ale yeasts

Simmered for a few hours, needed to add more water, strained it all, Put into a wine jug with an airlock. We'll see what happens.

I did a batch last year, sugar cane cooked with warm spices, nutmeg, all spice, tonga bean, vanilla, stuff like that, and it was DELICIOUS! Just found a store that carries the cane at a reasonable price year round, quality is shit, but there's snow on the ground here so I can't complain too much. There will be more sugar cane recipes to come, so keep an eye out for the stuff...[cont.]
https://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=115122


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## NickyJ (3/1/15)

Fantastic article! Thanks for that.


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## Mardoo (3/1/15)

TimT, where are you man? This is right up your alley.


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## Ducatiboy stu (3/1/15)

How are you planning to extract the juice from the cane 

The sugar mills I used to contract in used big arse steam powered crushers.....but I am gathering you will have something a bit smaller. Cane is pretty tough so it needs a bit of work to get all the juice out


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## NickyJ (3/1/15)

Just a cheap manual cane crusher. Still yet to figure out exactly which one, there was one on ebay that I liked the look of but just noticed its out of stock


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## Ducatiboy stu (3/1/15)

NickyJ said:


> Just a cheap manual cane crusher. Still yet to figure out exactly which one, there was one on ebay that I liked the look of but just noticed its out of stock


Dont forget to swap arms every now and again


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