Talk:Sweet sorghum

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According to the National Sweet Sorghum Producers and Processors Association, sweet sorghum is not used to make molasses. Molasses is made from sugarcane or sugar beet. Sweet sorghum is often/usually served in a syrup that looks and tastes similar to molasses but they are not the same. Liblamb 06:35, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, with roots in Louisiana, I've long been familiar with sorghum syrup. It's far too sweet for my tastes. I don't believe I wrote the original passage. Personally, sorghum "molasses" was unknown to me until I came upon this article. My edits focused on correcting (or adding, depending on whether the article was on sorghum or sweet sorghum) the date it was introduced into the U.S. and by whom. Before reverting your edit, however, I Googled "sorghum molasses" and found a number of listings: http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/search?encquery=4898D86743A8B4F5B065CDFB4A716AF6&invocationType=keyword_rollover&ie=UTF-8
If you had done similarly before making your edit, perhaps you would not have done so.
Perhaps the term "sorghum molasses" is a reflection of a difference in regional use of the term "molasses"? Perhaps, it's one of those protected trade names, like the kind which caused the rigamarole the prune industry had to go through to change its packaging to "dried plums," or that the potato chip industry put manufacturers of Pringles and other similar products through, forcing them to stop using "chips" and call their product "potato crisps." Initially, I thought that in some portions of the South, sorghum syrup and sorghum molasses might be one and the same. (I notice the trade association you cite is based in Kentucky.) Most of us are familiar with molasses made from sugarcane and used to make rum. However, an online dictionary defines "molasses" as:
Main Entry: mo·las·ses
Pronunciation: m&-'la-s&z
Function: noun
Etymology: modification of Portuguese melaço, from Late Latin mellaceum grape juice, from Latin mell-, mel honey —more at MELLIFLUOUS
Date: 1582
1 : the thick dark to light brown syrup that is separated from raw sugar in sugar manufacture
2 : a syrup made from boiling down sweet vegetable or fruit juice (citrus molasses) [emphasis added]
Will do some further reading on the matter, though, and check back. deeceevoice 10:23, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

--- Okay. Here's what I found. One of the sources accessed after a web search identified sorghum molasses as being a mixture of sorghum cane syrup and sugar cane molasses. But no recipes for or descriptions of sorghum molasses making include the addition of sugar cane molasses.

Another, more plausible explanation is this one at http://food.oregonstate.edu/sugar/molasses.html :

Molasses of old in the US was produced from sorghum [sweet sorghum: Gramineae Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] [emphasis added]. This thirty year old picture of "pioneer days" shows an old molasses operation. When I attended the production of molasses at this open-house, the producers went out to the field and brought in the sorghum stalks. These were placed in a grinder/press and the juices exuded. The grinder/press were simply two round wooden cylinder blocks that were turned by a mule walking on the exterior of the circle. The exuded juice ran down a wooden trough into a series of brick vats. Under the vats was a wooden fire. The heat evaporated the water from the sap. The concentration of sugars, acids, and minerals was depenedent upon the degree of evaporation.

Currently, molasses are also frequently a by-product of sugar cane production [emphasis added]. Again, the quality and characteristics is dependent upon the concentration and degree of processing. There is little commercial production of sweet sorghum for molasses. Sorghum crops are primarily used [in the] "farm" production of syrup [sic].

I say this explanation is more plausible simply because in the early days of the republic, molasses would have been a relatively expensive/scarce commodity, its areas of growth being limited to the South. Sorghum, however, could be grown far more widely. I think "sorghum syrup" and "sorghum molasses" may be essentially the same thing -- or, certainly, the same ingredients, with the latter being, perhaps, more concentrated/cooked longer than the former. If you follow some of the links, there are small farms and specialty operations today still producing "sorghum molasses" -- even in Tennessee and Kentucky -- for sale. deeceevoice 10:43, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Your edit, which I reverted, caused the text to say, rather curiously, that making sorghum was labor-intensive, rather than the making of molasses from sweet sorghum. In the original version, that phrase "molasses from sweet sorghum" and then the parenthetical "as from sugar cane," I think, makes a clear distinction between the two kinds of molasses -- enough so that there is no misunderstanding them to be identical products. And there seem to be cerainly enough current references to lead me to believe the term "sorghum molasses" is known and used fairly widely, even though you and I may not have been familiar with it prior to reading this piece. deeceevoice 10:48, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)


Good responses deeceevoice. Your right, I should have read a little more widely than I did before making the edits and my edits were sloppy to begin with. It looks like the word "molasses" does encompass a variety of products as your quoted definition explains. "Sorghum molasses" is a more specific title for the syrup made from sweet sorghum, yet could still be properly called "molasses" according to the dictionary.
I think your idea of trade names is on the right track. It looks like the sweet sorghum growers association tries to differentiate their product from other molasses, which specify that the highest grade and most pure molasses is from sugarcane [1]. The Columbia Encyclopedia's molasses article explains the issue also. It says, "Sugarcane is the major source of molasses; other sugar plants, e.g., the sugar beet, yield inferior types. The name molasses is sometimes applied to syrups obtained from sorghum and the sugar maple."
Some informative links are below.
  • This link explains how to make "molasses", using sweet sorghum. It looks like a college person's class project but it is informative.

[edit] Question

Is sorghum syrup made from the stalks or the grain? I always assumed it was made from the grain but have just been told it's made from the stalks. This should be added to the article. Badagnani 18:59, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

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