How molasses is made
Molasses is what is left after cane juice has been boiled and stripped of sugar crystals three times.
- stations
- 5
- things upstream
- 2
- raw sources
- 2
- step from the ground
- 1
The short version
Molasses is the thick syrup left behind when sugar is crystallized from cane or beet juice. Cane is crushed and the juice boiled, and sugar crystals are drawn off. After the first boiling comes the lightest syrup. A third boiling leaves dark, bitter blackstrap, from which most of the sucrose has been removed.
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Crush the cane for juice
Cane is stripped of its leaves, then cut, crushed or mashed until the juice runs out. Sugar beet juice gives a similar syrup.
Goes in -
Boil the juice down
Boiling the juice to a concentrate makes sugar crystallize. What is left after this first boiling is the first syrup.
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Spin out the crystals
Crystals of raw sugar are drawn out of the thick liquid. What remains is molasses.
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Boil it twice more
Boiling the syrup again and again pulls out more sucrose. A third boiling yields dark, viscous blackstrap molasses.
third boiling gives blackstrap
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Ship it onward
Blackstrap is drummed and tanked for rum distillers, feed makers and yeast producers. The syrup is sold in smaller jars for baking.
Worth repeating
- Blackstrap molasses is used for yeast production and cattle feed, and to make ethanol.
- Molasses was a common sweetener across the Americas before the 20th century.
- George Washington kept a recipe for molasses beer in a notebook.
Back to the ground
Follow every input upstream and molasses starts as these 2 raw sources.
Open the whole family tree
Where it goes next
Molasses feeds 6 lines directly and reaches 351 things in total.
Further down the line
Keep walking
Sources
Cite this page: "How molasses is made." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/molasses