Apr 022021
 

So this is a bucket of ‘sugar press mud’ or ‘belt press mud’. Provided courtesy of Louisiana Sugar Refinery in Gramercy, LA. They also provided a PDF with a chemical analysis but I’m not sure if it’s okay to post that and nobody but me reads this anyway so I didn’t.

It’s a byproduct of sugar cane processing. My understanding is it’s what came from bagasse but just wasn’t awesome enough to become molasses. It looks, smells, and sounds indistinguishable from dirt. I haven’t tasted it but I can guess. It feels almost like very rich topsoil, but disturbingly sticky. Like dirt sprayed with watered down syrup. My keen scientific intuition tells me that is probably related to the fact that sugary things tend to be sticky and this is made from the thing that makes sugary things sugary.

The first thing I did was roll up a little ball of it an drop it in a watermeal jar. I admit I was slightly disappointed it didn’t immediately overflow with watermeal growth like mentos and diet coke, but if it actually had that would have been weirder. It does roll up pretty nicely- kind of of a crumbly, semi-chunky dough.

So this is short post because I have no idea what’s next with this stuff. I’m not really in control, some force is making me want to grow watermeal and it made me think sugar press mud was how to do it so I got some. Weirdest psychosis ever, but it’s pretty innocuous and distracts me from the old familiar ‘existential paralysis’ brand of psychosis so I’m just going with it.

I’ll probably freeze some because it’s definitely going to become a fungus\mold extravaganza soon. I’m not really into growing mushrooms but I can’t help but wonder if there’s an opportunity there too. But unless\until some force makes me want to grow mushrooms too I’ll just keep wondering.