Starting from the beginning. we have a few small berry bushes that we pick every year. We clean off the berries and put them in the deep freeze. Every two or three years or when the deep freeze gets full we juice the berries. The juice is put in bottles and then back in the deep freeze it goes.
We have Nanking cherries, black currant, red currant and somebody always gives us crab apples.
Then over the two or three years we take out a bottle of juice and cook it up and make either a syrup or jelly. You can't beat it.
Now the pioneer way of juicing berries was to cook up the berries and put them in a cloth sack and let the juice drain into a container. This method isn't very efficient as you don't get a lot of juice.
So a long time ago we bought a steam juicer. This gizmo consists of three parts.The bottom part is just pot with water the produces the steam. The middle section is like a big funnel that catches the juice. The top part is a basket which contains the berries. As the steam goes through the berries juice is released . Each basket of different berries has a prescribed steaming time. Once the 50 minutes or whatever time is required we drain the hot juice out of the middle section and catch it in bottles.
So the other day we spent the whole day on the juicing project. Today I had some delicious black currant syrup.
Sorry, I don't like anything enough to go to that much work. First time I've seen a steamer. My mother used to drain juice through a cloth and make jelly. Not me.
ReplyDeleteEverybody has something different to occupy their time usefully. You happen to do a darn good job on political issues.
DeleteIt looks pretty efficient to me. I'd like to have some of that juice right now! :-)
ReplyDeleteIt's time consuming but you get much more juice.
DeleteMy sister has a juicer and makes a lot of jelly and bottles juice. I just use the cheesecloth method with my frozen raspberries to make jelly or syrup, since I don't make it very often.
ReplyDeleteWe don't juice raspberries but it sounds like a good idea.
DeleteIt makes beautiful juice too! I used to use a cheese cloth and hang it from a cabinet and it would drip slowly into the container. How times have changed! I bet your jelly tastes good too:)
ReplyDeleteAwesome tasting stuff with a good strong flavor.
DeleteNothing better than home made!! That's a lot of work, though! Obviously, it is worth it!
ReplyDeleteIt's time consuming but well worth the effort.
DeleteThat is so awesome! I didn't know that you could use crab apples.
ReplyDeleteYou get a good yield of juice from crabapples.
DeleteWow. I know a fair bit about kitchenware but I've never heard of or seen one of those! It sounds very efficient.
ReplyDeleteThere are various devices to juice things. One that comes to mind is a press.
Deletei found your post so interesting as it reminded me my grandma who used to grab juice by using the pioneer way you mentioned above!
ReplyDeleteAnd being child it was fun watching her doing all this and waiting for my turn.
We bought Juicer machine almost 12 year ago and it is still working smooth ,as juices are the part of daily routine and my husband always bring seasonal fruits for this.
my kids take lot effort to have carrot juice .
Blessings !
I would be interested in what kind of juicer you have!
DeleteThat's a good thing to do Red and I applaud you and "The Micro Juicer" for your endeavours.
ReplyDeleteOne day every two years is not much effort. You have to pick the berries but that's outside and can be done in pleasant weather.
DeleteA better time to process than in the dead of summer heat. I like this juicer, many mix the crab apples in other juice to use its natural pectin to make jelly.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't think of a project like this in the summer. the summer is used for picking berries.
DeleteWhat a fun project!!!
ReplyDeleteTime consuming but fun!
DeleteThat's something my parents never did.
ReplyDeleteJuicing would be for those who like gardening.
DeleteI think my grandparents used to do this, but my parents never did. I guess it's just too easy going to the grocery store for such items, although the homemade probably tastes better.
ReplyDeleteYour grandparents probably lived in a fruit growing area where some fruit could be obtained freely.
DeleteThat crabapple juice sure is pretty. I've never seen a juicer like yours. My parents had a fruit press with weights and a crank that pressed juice out of anything and I used it to make cider when we had apple trees. It's very messy. Yours looks much less so.
ReplyDeleteThis process is clean until you come to wash up. It's a little ricky running the hot juice into the bottles.
DeleteThat's terrific! Nothing like homemade goodness.
ReplyDeleteI do love homemade juices, jams, syrups and jellies. We now do that with our raspberries, black raspberries and persimmons.
ReplyDeleteMy one son did the juice making two years ago and wife on weekend. They drank it faster then they could make it the four of them. They even did the bread making.
ReplyDeleteThey loved the bread. They could not stop eating it.
So they stopped it all. He said the cleaning up is the worse. Then he put a garden in two years ago. Not this year. My Mom used to do all that with berries. Guess who had to pick them all the time. You guessed it. Me and her. Happy Juicing Red .
Hi Red, The juice sounds good. This post reminded me of a neighbor who made a breakfast drink each morning from fruits. He ran them through one of those vega-matic things that makes smoothies.
ReplyDeleteThat is a cool contraption. I have only made grape juice to make jelly and it was a lot of work. Thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteThat is some juice maker! I use a small juicer for making a glass of fresh juice.
ReplyDelete