Does anyone know of a way to make a usable sugar from beets? Does not have to be refined, brown would be fine. Saw something about boiling shredded beets in water that had lime added to raise pH to 8. Then filter liquid through bone charcoal or wood charcoal sprinkled with wood ashes. Then boiled down till it makes a hard string when dropped into water. When it is cooled into a sugar cake, crush into sugar. Don't know if this is fit for human consumption. Didn't say so in what I read. Any thoughts are welcome.

-- Tim Vander Waal (tvander@excel.net), October 10, 2001

Answers

I remember a similar discussion on here. I beleive it said, that making beet sugar for the homestead wasnt a vaiable option. You would be better off making sgar from maples, or getting bee hives. I beleive they have to be pressure cooked at a VERY high pressure, but IM not sure. I know POINEER SUGAR, here in mich takes tours and such,, they make all theirs from beets.

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), October 10, 2001.

Wouldn't pouring a water and beet solution through wood ashes potentially give you lye?

-- Susan (smtroxel@socket.net), October 10, 2001.

Susan - it isn't water and sugar through ashes that gives lye, it's water and fat. The lye that results from fat dripping into the ashes of a cooking fire gives a very nice soft soap when mixed with the right ingredients.

-- Claudia Glass (glasss2001@prodigy.net), October 11, 2001.

Claudia,, your thinking of something different. Water dripped thru ashes gives you lye water,, the strength depends on the type of ashes,, ect,, lye dripped into fat gives you soap

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), October 11, 2001.

and fat dripped into the ashes of a hot cooking fire gives you flare- ups. lol

by the way, just in case some one in here has never heard how soap was discovered... it was found back in the days when ladies washed their clothes by scrubbing them on rocks at the riverbank, that a certain spot caused the clothes to foam and they got much cleaner there. So they always went to that spot to wash clothes. The special place was located downhill from the place where sacrifices were offered. The ashes and fat from the HUMAN sacrifices were washed by rainfall down to those rocks, and performed the last rite of making clothes white as snow. Strange, and yes, icky, but true.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), October 11, 2001.

and that place was called, Mt Sappo ,, hence, saponifcation, (turning to soap), I didnt read about the human sacrifices, but was pagan sacrifices

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), October 11, 2001.