Seed buying frenzy today. Mostly for stuff to grow and sell to other people. Some stuff to try for myself. New things are going to be, "yakon," (Smallanthus sonchifolius,) and, "sugar beet."
I'll be attempting to make syrup from the yakon and sugar from the beets. The yakon is almost exactly like, "sunchoke," (Helianthus tuberosus,) but the storage tubers look more like sweet potatoes. They have a crown tuber that grows new plants and the storage tuber that only stores energy, mostly in the form of inulin, same as sunchokes. So, they will be easier to peel and process. Evidently, they taste the same as sunchokes and are closely related to them; even having similar top growth and flowers.
If you buy some yacon for growing, make sure it is the top crown tubers that are gnarly looking and bright pink-purple. Otherwise, you'll end up with the storage tubers and not have anything growing.
The sugar beets will be easy to process and make into sugar. The yacon will be a bit more difficult. You have to process them like you would agave when making tequila. The inulin must be broken down using either/or acid & heat or heat & time. Like when you make invert sugar using citric acid; to break sucrose into fructose and glucose. In this case it will break the inulin into mostly fructose with a tiny portion of glucose. I'll be using acid + heat + time to do it. Basically, just like making invert sugar, but taking it to the caramel stage of heat instead of stopping lower.
Yacon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yac%C3%B3nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMpub5wRKUEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwMm30PFPcsSugar Beet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4nK8lnZEA4 