Pour Some Sugar on Me

I registered for a Livestock Publications Council workshop, a two day gathering of editors, writers, growers/ranchers, publishers, and others in the livestock and agricultural industries. Today we toured a mint farm and distillery, a sugar factory (processed from sugar beets), a brandy and vodka distillery and a winery.

This is a photo of sugar crystalizing from the sugar syrup created from pulping and steaming sugar beets. This step in the process sends the syrup to evaporating towers. The sugar crystalizes, is collected, and sent to centrifuges. the crystals are brown, still covered in a layer of syrup. the centrifuge spins the syrup from the crystal leaving the familiar white granules behind. We were able to have a pich of "fresh" sugar straight from the centrifuge while it was still warm. The granules are sent for more evaporation before being bagged and sent on to your kitchen table.

This was a tricky shot. There is a microscope lens looking into an observation port on the evaporation tower and I had to position the lens of my camera so I could get a straight view while crouching over. Low light, no tripod, and tungsten/sodium vapor lighting made for some interesting challenges.

Mint oil sells for upwards of $18 - $20 per pound. There are about 400 pounds of oil in a 55 gallon drum.

It takes 42 pounds of raspberries to make a bottle of raspberry brandy.