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L

lbaker

NewBee
Registered Member
Jun 24, 2004
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www.moremead.com
Has anyone tried one of the electric juicers to extract the juice from Apples, Berries, and the like?

It seems like it would be a quick easy way to extract the juice, but are there any drawbacks?

Thanks...

Lyle Baker
 
I would guess the Time<-->Volume ratio could be a hinderance. If you're making a 10 gallon batch of cyser, that would mean about eight gallons (depending on your recipe) of juicing, and the apples necessary to create that volume would have to be prepared however the individual juicer requires in their instructions.

Cheers,

Oskaar
 
Well, I'm not sure it would be good for 10 gallons of apple juice, but as an example...

I just recently had a spare gallon on straight mead that I wanted to turn into a melomel. I had a couple lbs of blueberries in the freezer. I spent a good half hour extracting all of the juice I could from the berries. I probably could have done the same thing in about 30 seconds with a juicer.

But, I've never owned a juicer, so I'm not sure if there would be any undesirable side effects. For instance. Lets say I decide to use strawberries. Does the juice extraction process rip all of the seeds to shreds causing the resultant juice to be bitter?

Are there any side effects from the extraction process that would make you not to want to use the process?

Lyle
 
Hi Lyle,

On the frozen blueberries I'd personally put them through my Chinois and into the secondary vessel. Personally I want the skins in there for a little while to extract some of that tannin that adds character. For the strawberries I've done the same. It seems to me that juicers are made for a one or two glass target volume, although I'm sure there are those that are made for larger volume.

I'd suggest a google search doing like "juicer +product-review" or go to Amazon and see what the people who actually bought one have to say.

I don't have personal experience with any juicers. For my money a good Chinois gets the chunkies, the seeds, the stems and skins. You can always pull some of the skins out of the chinois and toss them in with your pulpy juice for the tannin. the big advantage to me is that a chinois doesn't draw power, and it's easy to clean.

Cheers,

Oskaar
 
I've got a juicer and I'm about to try that for the first time - I'll let you know how it turns out. I have 1 gallon of mead, and I plan on breaking it up into half gallon batches with strawberry and blueberry respectively. I'm going to add the juice and some of the pulp (the pulp gets collected in a separate container). So, we'll see!
 
Cool, let us know how it works.

Since you have a juicer can you tell us a bit about it please?

Is it a centrifugal type, what's the volumetric capacity, how fast does it work, and what kind of power it draws (I live in California so we're always watching that power thing here) would all be really helpful.

I've always been curious about the juices because whenever I see them demonstrated or on TV they always seem to be making one glassfull of juice at a time.

Thanks,

Oskaar
 
Offhand, I seem to know nothing about my own juicer. Its electic - you shove the fruit in it like a food processor, and what looks like a metal grater spins and shreads it. Juice comes out of one end, and the pulp collects at the other. So, you could add the shreaded skins to the must if you want.

It is best suited for one glass at a time. When I've juiced a bunch of fruit in place of buying OJ, I had to pour it one glass at a time into my pitcher because any pitcher or tall glass would be too tall for the juicer.

Anyway, since I'm dealing with half gallon to one gallon batches, I figure one glass full of fresh juice will be enough. I figure I'll use 1 lb of strawberries for my half gal batch, and 1 lb of blueberries for the other. Does this sound like a good amount?
 
For a medium flavored blueberry melomel you'll need about 1 pound of berries for a half gallon, a half-pound for weaker flavor, and about a pound and a quarter or pound and a half for stronger flavor.

I'm not sure what that equates to in the volume rendered by the juicer and the size/number of glasses you'll need.

Strawberries should take about the same or slightly more for each level of weak, MEADium (sorry, couldn't resist) or strong flavor.

Cheers,

Oskaar
 
My better half and I have a blueberry mel going now, we have made blackberry and red raspberry, all I did was puree' the berries and add them to the must. We lost the raspberry due to mold forming during all the huricans we had, but the blueberry is still going strong and the Blackberry was awesome, it didn't last long around here. The flavor was great!
 
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