Design Factors for Milling Sweet Sorghum

ABSTRACT Two varieties of sweet sorghum (Wray and M 8IE), in 30 cm billets or in whole stalks, were processed with a modified shredder and/or modified mill to obtain basic system design information. The shredder-mill eliminated hand feeding of whole stalks and the system could be automated to operate continuously at maximum feed rate, which was 2.5 times the mill manufacturer's rating. Tops and leaves of Wray variety plants containes 18% of plant mass and 4 to 9% of plant sugar. Maximum juice extraction was near 50% of input for whole stalks and billets. For feed rates below maximum, juice extraction was greater and required less energy when milling whole stalks than when shredding and milling billets. Maximum feed rate resulted in highest extraction, lowest energy/t of juice (7 kW-h), and best utilization of equipment.