[Maryann]

Apart from the humble sieve does anyone use a piece of equipment or 'gadget' to remove seeds & pips from fruit – I'm thinking raspberries, blackberries and tomatoes.
 
I have a problem sieving as I have a dodgy right elbow and shoulder after a bad fall down the stairs at work years ago. I should have got it treated but left it too long and now I'm paying the price! The result is I get started on the sieving but as I've no strength or stamina in the arm I have to give up after a while.
 
In my armoury (ooh bad pun) of gadgets I do have a potato ricer (used twice) and I'm sure somewhere in the garage is a stainless steel gadget like a mill or grinder which has a couple of metal discs which slot into a bowl and a handle which turns it round – never used. Also I'm sure if I look hard enough I do have an electric juicer which from memory separates the skin and pips from the fruit. Often I buy these things on impulse but also my kids give them to me as presents knowing I do love a gadget!
 
Now is there anything in the above that might do the job for me? I am thinking particularly of getting pips out of fruit pulp after steaming fruit for the juice to make jelly. I have a lot of pulp left over that I could make cheese with but the thought of all that sieving means it invariably gets binned. Plus – would like to make tomato ketchup and will need to get rid of seeds.

[compostqueen]

I was looking at buying a pomodori from Seeds of Italy for de-seeding and removing skins off tomatoes as I have a really painful wrist.  I didn't but I think I might change my mind and invest in one.  I ended up gently cooking my whole toms and then putting the resultant mush through a plastic sieve, pushing it through with the back of a ladle.  It works fine.  Mind you I dare say cranking a handle is hard work so maybe the sieve was the lesser of two evils    I do the same with the fruit. You need a plastic sieve though as the acids react with the metal sieves and you get a rusty sieve

[mumofstig]

a stainless steel gadget like a mill or grinder which has a couple of metal discs which slot into a bowl and a handle which turns it round – never used.

That's a mouli, and it will get the big seeds from tomatoes, but unless you have a finer disc than I have.........it won't get small pips from raspberries and blackberries 
Same thing with the tomato machine! I use the nylon sieve and a wooden spoon for the small seeds.

[Maryann]

Oh Boo 
I was afraid that would be the answer.
What about the potato ricer - wonder if that would work 

[Maryann]

I was looking at buying a pomodori from Seeds of Italy for de-seeding and removing skins off tomatoes as I have a really painful wrist.  I didn't but I think I might change my mind and invest in one.  I ended up gently cooking my whole toms and then putting the resultant mush through a plastic sieve, pushing it through with the back of a ladle.  It works fine.  Mind you I dare say cranking a handle is hard work so maybe the sieve was the lesser of two evils    I do the same with the fruit. You need a plastic sieve though as the acids react with the metal sieves and you get a rusty sieve

Just looked at one of these and it looks quite good apart from the fact it seems to sit on suction pads which I never think work very effectively. I had a hand mincer like that years ago and it was always flying off the work top - would this bit of kit do the same I wonder?
I do have a Kitchen Aid Food mixer and someone has sent me a link showing an attachment for it that they say de-seeds fruit so I might look into that.

[mumofstig]

Mine stays attached to a smooth worktop, but not to a textured one!
BUT it didn't remove the tiny seeds from fruit when I tried it

[joyfull]

I have a kitchenaid mixer too and have the fruit strainer but cant say if it's any good as I haven't tried that attachment yet  .

[Ice]

Put the fruit in muslin and tie it, then squeeze it in the potato ricer.  Werks fer me.

[Maryann]

I have a kitchenaid mixer too and have the fruit strainer but cant say if it's any good as I haven't tried that attachment yet  .

Well thats just not good enough....you need to get it out and have a play with it this weekend and report back 

Hmm, might give it a go Ice but what if you have loads to do, would take a while to keep redoing muslin arrangement wouldn't it? I did make a very small jar of redcurrant jelly today as only had a small carton of them. I used the potato ricer on them and it worked quite well but wouldn't want to do a big load.

C'mon Joyfull - get that toy out the cupboard 

[joyfull]

shame you don't live closer you could have borrowed it (I buy all my kitchenaid stuff to use with my mixer off the American ebay site - even with shipping they are still cheaper) 

[Trillium]

I have the Kitchen Aid mixer attachment and it works a treat. It even takes out very small tomato seeds. Haven't used it on raspberries but I'm sure it would work. Nice part is that you simply swing the switch and the machine does all the hard work. I just feed stuff into the hopper with a ladle.

The key with the K.A. unit is that all the seeds feed into a narrow, tight auger, and successive seeds get caught in the dry pile building up while all the juices move forward and out the seive-like holes.

[Maryann]

Sounds good - and Joy, what a great tip to order from US Amazon - thanks for that. Wish I had known that before buying my KA here in UK. We went for basic one in white as felt I couldn't push my luck and go for Artisan model.

Trillium - can it be used to extract seeds from cooked fruit? I always have a lot of fruit pulp left over from making jelly and would like to use it to make seedless jam or jam cheese but as I said above all that sieving is hard work for me. I need something that will leave me with a seedless pulp if possible.

[Trillium]

It will take out most seeds except for grape seeds which are too large and hard and will damage the unit.  Not sure about strawberry seeds as they're quite fine and might slip through.

I love the K.A. for tomatoes as the seeds give me terrible indigestion and now I can happily eat tomato sauces since they're seedless.

[Maryann]

Well I have same problem with tom seeds - they play havoc with my digestive system (I wont go into the details  ) so would be great for that.
Not bothered about strawberries as the tiny little seeds dont cause any problems. It's mostly raspberries, blackberries and tomatoes. Oh and also apples.
What I would use it for mostly would be to strain the cooked fruit pulp after I have extracted the juice from it. It is still fairy wet and soft but it has apple cores and and skins and seeds left in it so would need to be able to handle that. I'm just trying to avoid having to sieve it by hand if possible.

[Trillium]

Yep, it does a lovely job straining out cooked apple seeds, cores and skin for applesauce. If you want to first let the juice drip out through a jelly bag, you can do that, then process the rest through the mixer unit for apple sauce, you'll maximize your product.

I find quartering the apples before cooking speeds up the process and makes it easier to feed through the hopper tube. If you can get someone to do this first for you, it should make everything else easier.

When you've pureed a large potful of toms or apples, you'll need to clean out the auger before moving onto another potful. The KA squeezes out so much juice that the dried pulp at the end of the process unit is too dry after a while and can't get out, so a quick cleanout will sort that out.