Oberholtzer's Kentucky Sorghum - See it made!

[Music] oberholtzer sorghum a kentucky tradition [Music] oberholtzer's organ mill is a family business located among the hills and hollows of the southport community in central kentucky rich golden sorghum produced here is known for its traditional sweet taste and unsurpassed quality [Music] ever wonder how this stuff is made i'm here at overhaul through sorghum there we're going to take a tour and see how some of the finest sorghum in kentucky is produced to do that we're gonna have to get up early catch the first operation come on the operation begins as early as four or five am wagons loaded the day before with kane from the field are pulled up alongside the press [Music] bundles of plants loaded with juice are thrown on this conveyor and fed into the press these hungry rollers grab the cane and pull it toward larger flat rollers which squeeze the juice from the plant juice runs into a screened pant located underneath the rollers and is transported underground to the preheating tanks [Music] the smashed cane comes out the other side and is blasted into waiting trucks and trailers to be hauled away and used for mulching or composting in the other building a fire is started in the steam boiler giant this tremendous steam pressure will be used to cook the syrup the custom tilting stainless pans are partially heated and prepared for the day [Music] me these are the tanks that hold the freshly pressed juice until it is cooked the juice is preheated in these tanks to 150 degrees [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the juice is not so much to look at now but just you wait [Music] [Music] alan oberholtzer is a veteran in the art of cooking sorghum molasses and he needs to be it is no easy feat to keep the juice at just the right temperature flowing at just the right pace to make the perfect golden syrup you see in the jar [Music] in 1976 we moved from to kentucky from pennsylvania and in that first year a neighbor came by and persuaded my dad to buy his organ meal so that very first year we started doing sorghum and i was 11 at the time and i helped there and i've been helping every year since i think it was like 1986 that my brother and i took it over when dad retired and uh he helped for maybe 10 years or so and now i'm sort of doing it by myself [Music] the experience pays off it takes a force very large and very hot to power an operation like this here she is a huge old-fashioned steam boiler [Music] so [Music] this spoiler eats an unbelievable amount of wood each day and keeps a man busy just feeding her insatiable appetite [Music] the steam pressure must be kept at a constant level not too low and not too high in the event of pressure rising too high this red warning light comes on and steam is released through the old-fashioned water pump underneath the boiler [Music] so [Music] so [Music] i think it was just before dad stopped that we switched to steam instead of the fire under the pan like we normally had and that was a major improvement and my brother and i kept on changing pants maybe changing five times improving each time and the version we have now we've had 15 years i would say and it's working [Music] [Music] when it leaves the finishing pan the syrup is cooled as it flows through here and into a tank [Music] in the lower room there's a hum of activity [Music] these jars are filled with the rich sweet golden sorghum [Music] [Music] the jars passed down this assembly line which was invented and built by allen and his brother [Music] [Music] everyone gets to help the labeler is a piece of ingenuity and places a label at the right spot on each jar from the round table the jars are put in cases and stacked on pallets [Music] [Music] some of the sorghum is loaded into trucks by the pallet and goes to wholesale buyers [Music] [Music] some of it is bottled into these plastic jugs in addition to the jars and a to retail customers and tourists who came to see the operation [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] a steam-powered sorghum operation would not be complete without the traditional steam whistle around noon that melodious sound can be heard echoing through the valley for miles around [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hmm [Music] [Music] so [Music] the syrup continues to boil merely in the pan and clouds of steam continue to rise and evaporate [Music] and the old boiler is never satisfied [Music] nothing gets wasted in this operation and the straw called pumice which misses the trailer is gathered up and hauled away to a local produce patch [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oberhauser's kentucky sorghum the taste of tradition [Music] you

Channel: Ben Zimmerman

Views: 61,105

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Id: n7r0Uxh9GG4

Length: 17min 14sec (1034 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 09 2021