Success with juicing sugar cane with a Breville Fountain Elite Juicer. Complete step-by-step of how I do it. Below is a time-stamp table of contents to the above video. It’s about 20 minutes long.
0:00 Introduction
1:15 Choosing and harvesting a cane.
2:37 Measuring the cane (just for fun).
3:41 Cutting the cane into manageable sections.
5:05 Washing the cane to get mold and bugs off.
5:47 Peeling the cane.
7:20 Cutting out the cane joints and preparing pieces for juicing.
10:06 How the Breville Juicer works.
12:29 Juicing the cane.
13:44 My impression of the Breville Juicer.
15:50 What the left-over pulp looks like.
17:48 Straining the juice before drinking. I initially strained the juice through a fine wire mesh strainer but that was not enough. It must be filtered through a very, very fine filter. I ended up filtering it a second time through a white cotton t-shirt.
18:19 Tasting the sugar cane juice!
18:45 Final thoughts about the results.
Sugar Cane is Making a Come-Back with Gardeners
Part of the beauty of tropical and sub-tropical Florida is that the climate allows gardeners to grow tropical and sub-tropical fruits and vegetables. Most of us who grew up in Florida had neighbors with a patch of sugar cane in their yard–old-timers mostly. They were too old to go out and wrangle the cane anymore, so it was just left to grow wild. Most of my generation really did not know what to do with it.
Purple sugar cane growing in my yard in a self-watering container
Today, a new resurgence in urban and suburban food gardening, permaculture, and homesteading has re-kindled an interest in growing and harvesting sugar cane. The main uses for sugar cane in the home garden are as a treat–sucking the sweet juice out–or as a source of drinking juice, syrup, or sugar. It takes a lot of juice to make syrup and sugar, so the home garden is often limited to growing just enough cane for chewing or to make fresh juice.
Gardeners Want to Know How to Juice Sugar Cane
The big challenge is getting the juice out of the cane. Sugar cane is very tough and fibrous. Commercial juicers crush the cane with rollers, literally squeezing the juice out. These commercial juicers are expensive, often north of $1,000.
In poorer countries, like in the Caribbean Islands, hand-made cane crushers can get the job done if you have the materials, tools, and time to make them. Here’s a handmade cane juicer in use in Trinidad (YouTube) (West Indies). Here’s another in Jamaica (part 1 Youtube), and (part 2 Youtube).
I’ve watched many YouTube videos where people tried to use their vegetable juicer to juice sugar cane. None were successful. This was mainly due to their ignorance of the nature of sugar cane combined with the type of juicer they were using.
I had watched several attempts by YouTubers to use their vegetable juicer to juice cane (unsuccessfully). Jason Charette tried using the Omega VERT juicer (Youtube), which failed miserably. Traci’s Superfood Secrets tries using a Green Star Juicer (YouTube), which also failed.
My sugar cane has been growing for a year. Now it’s time to harvest for juicing.
How I Used My Breville Fountain Elite to Juice Sugar Cane
I found that the use of a powerful vegetable juicer combined with the proper preparation of the cane will yield successful results. I already had a very good vegetable juicer: The Breville 800JEXLFountain Elite
To juice the cane with my Breville Juicer, I picked out a 10 foot long cane that had been growing in a self-watering container for one year and did the following:
Step 1: Cut the cane into manageable lengths of 3 to 4 feet. The lower sections of the cane is usually the sweetest.
Step 1: I’ve cut the 10 foot cane into manageable lengths.
Step 2: Using a stiff brush and water, scrub off any dirt or sooty mold from the cane. You don’t want that in your juice.
Step 2: Washing the dirt and sooty mold off the cane.
Step 3: Peel the cane using a large, sharp, thin-bladed knife.
Step 3: Peeling the sugar cane.
Step 4: Cut the tough joints out of the cane, leaving only the individual sections of cane.
Step 4: Removing the hard joints from the cane. These are too hard to run through the juicer.
Step 5: Cut the remaining cane sections lengthwise to make smaller pieces. This will go through the juicer more easily.
Step 5: Sugar cane prepared to easily go through the Breville Juicer.
Step 5: Pieces of peeled sugar cane ready to go through the juicer.
Step 6: Run the cane through the juicer.
Step 6: Using the Breville Juicer to juice sugar cane.
A pitcher of fresh sugar cane juice from a 10 foot length homegrown cane.
Step 7: Strain the juice through a very fine filter. I had very good results from straining the juice through a white cotton t-shirt. This is important. Unlike the commercial juicers which crush the cane, the Breville grinds it. This produces a lot of very fine fibers in the finished juice. You definitely don’t want to drink all that fiber. I did, and it really upset my stomach. Straining the juice through small mesh hand strainer (like you might use for orange juice) was not effective at removing the fiber. I ended up filtering the juice through a white cotton t-shirt and it took all of that fiber out. If you are planning to make syrup or sugar from the juice, you will still need to filter it. I thought about filtering it a second time through a coffee filter, but I didn’t have one (I don’t drink coffee). It didn’t seem necessary, but I might try it next time I make cane juice.
Step 7: Filtering the sugar cane juice through a white cotton t-shirt. This fiber is not digestible and you must filter it out or it will upset your stomach. I just placed the t-shirt over a glass and poured the juice into the glass.
Above: Fibers left in the cane juice by the Breville Juicer. This must be filtered out before drinking or making syrup. I had left the unfiltered juice in the refrigerator overnight, and this is what settled in the bottom of the pitcher.
Below is a video of me trying two different methods of filtering/straining the fiber out of the sugar cane juice. The t-shirt filter turned out to be the best:
In this experiment I used purple cane because that’s what was ready to harvest. I also have another variety of purple cane, as well as several varieties of green-yellow cane. I’ll start juicing those next summer. Different varieties of cane have different flavors. Some cane is softer than others. The purple cane I juiced is an excellent chewing cane because it is quite soft. Some of the other varieties I have may not be as soft, but I still think the Breville Fountain Elite will handle them with no problem.
