How To Make Sugar At Home

We won’t know when this pandemic will end, which means we also don’t know how long our food supplies can hold.

Worse comes to worst, you must learn how to make sugar at home for survival!

How to Make Sugar with These Simple Recipes

Sugar Can Get You Through Food Hardships

Preppers know that knowledge is much more important than expensive gear. In addition to being well versed in survival techniques, knowing about farming and cooking are equally important for self-reliance.

In the case that SHTF and society never returns to how we once knew it, we will be individually responsible for our food supply.

Back in the days of the pioneers, one sought-after and universally appreciated ingredient was sugar. At a time when survival was a physical struggle, a sweet treat went a long way to ease the hardships.

Making the most commonly enjoyed cane sugar is an involved and expensive process. However, both beet and maple sugar can be made more easily at home and with just a few tools.

Rather than risk a bug infestation in your well-stocked pantry, forego stockpiling sugar and instead, prepare to make your own.

1. Beet Sugar

Beet sugar is NOT made from red or white beets. A sugar beet actually resembles more of a potato-colored turnip.

While red and white beets make a great side dish at dinner, this type of beets is not something you’d want to eat out of the ground.

Ingredients:

• Sugar beets (Less than 20% of its weight becomes sugar)
• A pot
• Reliable heat source
• Cheesecloth
• Something to stir with
• A storage container

Pretty simple! You’ll want to start planting sugar beets in your garden in large quantities since the yield on them is low.

Instructions:

• Scrub your beets clean.
• Slice, dice, or shred the beets into very thin pieces.
• Put the beets in a pot and just barely cover them with water.
• Bring to a boil and then simmer until the beets are soft.
• Take the pot off the heat source and remove the beets.
• Squeeze the juice out of the beets into the pot using the cheesecloth. Squeeze several times to make sure you get as much as you can.
• Simmer until the beet juice becomes thick like honey, stirring frequently.
• Remove from heat and place in your storage container to cool.
• Once cool, the sugar will crystallize. Mash the crystals into usable sugar.
• Enjoy!

2. Maple Sugar

Maple sugar requires a couple of more unusual kitchen tools to make, as well as access to pure, organic maple syrup.

It is worth the effort if you have maple trees nearby, a candy thermometer, and a heavy-bottomed pot.

Ingredients:

• Several gallons of pure, organic maple syrup
• Heavy-bottomed pot
• Candy thermometer
• Something to stir with
• Heat-resistant container

Instructions:

• Heat several gallons of maple syrup on medium-high heat until it reaches 290-300°F.
• Remove from heat and stir continuously for 5 minutes.
• Carefully pour into a heat-resistant container.
• Let cool completely.
• Break into chunks and mash into sugar.
• Enjoy!

Maple trees can be tapped several times each spring when the syrup is running, and you can expect about 13 gallons of syrup per tree. One quart of good, thick maple syrup will give you about 2 pounds of sugar.

Self-sufficiency is key when preparing for the unknown. Although you may have to adjust to things being very different if SHTF, having some creature comforts will provide a sense of normalcy. The ability to make your own sugar is just one way to achieve that.

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