Syrup I
Ret
Several Clinton Mills Retired Old Timers
Mac Cunningham, Plant No. 2; Brevard Patterson,
and Lester Ivester, Bailey Plant,
had been planning for months how they'd
Well Guarded?Brevard Pattersoi
guarded squeezing device.
Steady Flow?Mac Cunningham o
from the cane juice squeezing app,
Making
ired Old Timers M
be cooking homemade syrup this fall.
Patterson looks at the project as a real
team project. In May he planted 1/3 acre
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n carefully feeds sugar cane into well
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bserves steady stream of cane juice flowing
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tedious job of cutting and stripping each
individual stalk.
Once the task was completed, he hauled
the cane to the home of Mr. and Mrs. James
Compton where the grinding and cooking
ucgan.
James Compton is a neighbor of Cunningham
and neighbor of Lester Ivester.
Using a grinding and squeezing device
that had been "speeded up" by Sam Compton,
the three retired men began the
squeezing process.
The individuals, taking time to feed the
stalks of cane between the well guarded
squeeze rollers, watched a steady flow of
cane juice empty into 32 gallon cans.
In all, the men fed four trailer loads of
cane into the "squeezer", yielding about
450 gallons of sweet sticky juice.
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450 Gallons of Juice?Brevard Pa
juice into cooking vessel as Cunni
strainer.
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Skimming Important?Brevard P<
juice as its being cooked.
Page 9
.ittle Sweeter
When 120 gallons of juice had been prepared,
and emptied into a sectionalized
copper pan, the trio stoked large blocks of
wood into the cooker.
411 'wo Koon i nun I wo H intn thic rtvior a uoor
period," stated Cunningham. "You've got to
boil and skim away the impurities and cook
the juice until about 90% of it is evaporated,
leaving a thicky, smooth syrup."
Friends and neighbors gathered to watch
the process. According to Patterson, "Very
few people get many opportunities to see
syrup made. It's almost a lost art."
Each vat took about 7 hours to cook, thus
providing the men an opportunity to sit
around and relive many of their experiences
during their long association with Clinton
Mills.
itterson, center, pours 5 gallons of cane
ngham, left, and Carol Compton holds
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atterson skims impurities off top of cane