Sun setting on St. Mary
When you visit a raw sugar factory in Louisiana, you will see one of Louisiana’s largest, oldest and most fascinating industries in operation.
Seen here is St. Mary Sugar Co-op, Inc. in Jeanerette, LA which is one of the last remaining 11 raw sugar mills/factories in the State.
Sugarcane is harvested by way of hand cutting, machine cutting, or mechanical raking.
Once the cane arrives at the mill it is weighed and then shredded. The shredding breaks the fibrous stalks apart, bursting the juice cells.
Following this, the cane is crushed through a series of rollers, separating the juice from the leftover fibrous material.
The leftover material is used to fuel the mill's furnaces.
Having extracted the juice, impurities need to be removed.
This is done by adding lime and heating.
The clear juice is then concentrated by boiling under a vacuum into a syrup.
The syrup is further concentrated and seeded with smaller crystals and spun through a centrifuge to separate the formed crystals and dark syrup.
The sugar at this stage is typically not food grade though.
Once dried, these crystals are transferred to storage or transported to a refinery.
About 225 pounds of sugar, and 6 gallons of blackstrap molasses are obtained from a gross ton of Louisiana sugarcane.
Took my friend Alfred (www.flickr.com/photos/alfredlockwood/) by this place when he was visiting. We lucked up and got a personal tour by the General Manager David Thibodeaux.
A Big Salute goes out to ALL Farmers....everywhere....on this Thanksgiving Week for what they do to provide us those simple things we can sometimes take for granted......
Jeff Hebert © All rights reserved
Thanks for taking a look. Comments appreciated.
Have a great day.
Sun setting on St. Mary
When you visit a raw sugar factory in Louisiana, you will see one of Louisiana’s largest, oldest and most fascinating industries in operation.
Seen here is St. Mary Sugar Co-op, Inc. in Jeanerette, LA which is one of the last remaining 11 raw sugar mills/factories in the State.
Sugarcane is harvested by way of hand cutting, machine cutting, or mechanical raking.
Once the cane arrives at the mill it is weighed and then shredded. The shredding breaks the fibrous stalks apart, bursting the juice cells.
Following this, the cane is crushed through a series of rollers, separating the juice from the leftover fibrous material.
The leftover material is used to fuel the mill's furnaces.
Having extracted the juice, impurities need to be removed.
This is done by adding lime and heating.
The clear juice is then concentrated by boiling under a vacuum into a syrup.
The syrup is further concentrated and seeded with smaller crystals and spun through a centrifuge to separate the formed crystals and dark syrup.
The sugar at this stage is typically not food grade though.
Once dried, these crystals are transferred to storage or transported to a refinery.
About 225 pounds of sugar, and 6 gallons of blackstrap molasses are obtained from a gross ton of Louisiana sugarcane.
Took my friend Alfred (www.flickr.com/photos/alfredlockwood/) by this place when he was visiting. We lucked up and got a personal tour by the General Manager David Thibodeaux.
A Big Salute goes out to ALL Farmers....everywhere....on this Thanksgiving Week for what they do to provide us those simple things we can sometimes take for granted......
Jeff Hebert © All rights reserved
Thanks for taking a look. Comments appreciated.
Have a great day.