Production Technology of Lump Sugar Gur/Jaggery

From times immemorial gur has satisfied the human craving for nutritive sweeteners. The lump suga-gur or jaggery is a nutritive sweetening agent manufacture primarily from sugarcane. It is consumed almost by all Indians in some form or the other. To date, its per capita consumption in India is 10.6 kg (in 1990-191). In some parts of the world gur is also produced from certain palms and sweet sorghum. Gur or jaggery is primarily produced in developing or underdeveloped countries. Considerable developments have taken place in various aspects of gur manufacturing process. The present effort critically reviews most of the technological developments in this field of research. It identifies bottlenecks in the gur production technology and how it can be improved upon. It highlights the methodologies for making gur from sugarcane growing under biotic and abiotic stress conditions. Different aspects of gur making from various palms and sweet sorghum have been provided. Various aspects of the palm gur discussed include tapping of the sap and its processing to gur, special types of gur and syrup obtained from palms and its composition relative to the gur from juice of sweet sorghum, manufacturing of gur from juice of sweet sorghum stalks, constraints in its manufacture and how these could be overcome, its quality vis-a-vis gur from sugarcane juice, syrup preparation, etc. have been discussed. The pioneering work done in this field in Maharashtra finds its due place. Engineering aspects related to crushers and furnaces have been included as these are must for increasing gur recovery. Constraints in gur manufacturing have also been identified. Medicinal uses of gur as identified by indigenous medical practice have been listed in the book. The authors strongly feel that if the improved technology for gur making is adopted and research efforts are geared in appropriate direction, in times to come the product will be able to fulfill the increasing nutritive sweetener demands and wider acceptability besides augmenting the employment potential in this unorganised sector. As this adequately illustrated book deals with various aspects of gur from sugarcane, palms and sweet sorghum, we strongly feel that a vademecum of this type will be useful to agronomists, progressive farmers, gur manufacturers and those involved in gur storage and marketing.