[sorrel]

After much dithering I have decided to buy hubby a fruit press as we always have loads of extra fruit. particularly apples and pears.....  The kids love apple juice and I have heard if you press the juice it freezes well...   But I vaguely remember that before you can store apple juice you have to pasturize it.  

Can anyone advise me please?

[WG.]

Cue ... David. ...

He makes tons of it sorrel so I'm sure he'll see your post.  (or search for posts by him containing apple)

[David.]

I use one of these to pasteurise juices & cordials:



Expensive, but I pressed about 120 gall apple juice last year, preserved about half, plus pear juice, blackberry juice & elderflower cordial. I mainly use sparkling wine bottles for juice with 29mm (next size up from standard beer bottle) crown caps @ 3p each (scavenged loads at Christmas/New Year, as purpose bought bottles (750ml) cost 75p each and replacement plastic screw tops 10p each.

Obtainable from:
http://www.vigopresses.co.uk

Or you can freeze the juice in PET bottles (such as milk bottles) or in freezer bags in empty juice cartons (more efficient use of space). I quite often do this whilst waiting to get juices for the right blend before pasteurising/fermenting.

But if frozen straight from pressing you are likely to be freezing murky brown juice. Using pectalase (pectin destroying enzyme - from homebrew shops, much cheaper in 500g/1000g bags) + a campden tablet to prevent oxidation for 24hrs before bottling will drop the sediment and give you bright, clear juice to preserve. Ascorbic acid (Vit C - HB shop again) will prevent oxidation, but give that 'cloudy apple juice' effect as in some shop bought juices.

How are you intending to pulp apples? The equipment (cheap) that I use is in this thread:
http://www.chat.allotment-garden.org/viewtopic.php?t=8119

+ Useful apple juice info at:
http://www.cider.org.uk/part6.htm

[WG.]

Superb post David. - would you please re-post that one as soon as I've done the wsiwyggy thread for Apples/Preserving .  Tks in advance

[sorrel]

Thanks david - very useful

[David.]

Superb post David. - would you please re-post that one as soon as I've done the wsiwyggy thread for Apples/Preserving .  Tks in advance

Shout if I miss it. I’m now also dehydrating apple pieces. As this (amongst other related) subjects seem to keep coming up, I'm trying to get comprehensive guides saved as WP files.