100 lbs of blackberries crushed

[jamesngalveston]

someone wanted to know....
i crused 100 lbs of blackberries yesterday, i ended up with 4 3/4 gallon of juice.

 

[wood1954]

lotta work i bet. Are you adding any water or fermenting straight juice?

 

[jamesngalveston]

i am going to add 1 1/4 gallon water to the 4 3/4 to make 6.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

You only got a 40% yield? Did you crush them first or macerate them with pectinase? Have you guys heard about using rice hulls to help in pressing, not sure how they work, it might be like it gives them some texture for friction or opens up drain cananals but using rice hulls would help get more juice. I forget, you guys are in Texas, are these dry drought berries with very little juice in them?

WVMJ

 

[Billberry]

Only 4 3/4? Wow! How exactly did you juice these blackberries?
I juiced 20 lbs the hard way....Mashed with the back of a spoon in a course strainer and I ended up with about 2 gallons of juice. Boy do I need a fruit press! It took me 3 hours and I might get carpal tunnel doing it that way
But I digress, just curious as to exactly how you did it.

 

[newbietowine]

Would it work to run the berries through a juicer? Going to be picking blackberries for the wine here this weekend.

 

[flyfishun]

I have made several batches of blackberry wine in the past. I have always frozen my fruit the. Allowed it to thaw in a clean fermenter. Once thawed I run all the berries through a blender add to another fermenter and start. All the seeds will settle out as well as the pulp. Rack till clear.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

When you are talking about 100 pounds of berries blenders wont do or little juicers, you either need lots of brute force or crushers and presses or you will wear yourself out silly trying to get the last drop of juice. Forgot James is no longer with us. WVMJ

 

[Julie]

........Forgot James is no longer with us. WVMJ

He is back, WV

 

[Tess]

Welcome back James. You were missed

 

[jamesngalveston]

usually about 4 to 5 lbs of blackberries will give you a quart of juice after straining a few times.
20 lbs per gallon...
i crushed with the bucket in a bucket with a hole and hydraulic jack....
if you got 2 gallons of juice from 20lbs, i need to know how..
thats a good return....

thanks tess.

 

[Billberry]

I just crushed with a spoon in a stainless strainer by hand James. I mashed the hell out of them and as I said it was a LOT of work. Don't know if I'll do it that way again. I would Love to buy a good press like the stainless Ferrari but funds are a little low for an investment like that right now. It was about 2 gallons but actually it was somewhere between 1 1/2 to 2 didn't actually measure it precisely. But now that I have racked to the secondary it looks like I have a lot of more sediment than when I did my experimental 1 gallon batch last year so maybe I got a little too overzealous with the mashing and some of the volume of the juice was actually pulp?

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

HI James, we have been running ours thru a grape crusher after we froze them and thawed them, then add pectinase and let them set overnight and then put them in a strainer bag and king kong sqeeze it by hand or press. You can also add a gallon of hot water to the pressed berries, mix it back up and let set to dissolve even more stuff to use for a seconds wine. I usually count on a gallon of juice from 10 pounds of berries. WVMJ

 

[Billberry]

Maybe the blackberries that grow in your part of the country are a different type than the ones in the North East that aren't as big and/or juicy?

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Right BB, I needed to qualify my posts. Wild Drought berries vs cultivated with irrigation, forgot to add ours is irrigated with drip hose. Adding a gallon of hot water to the drought berries after they are squished and letting it soak out more sugars is probably even more important with the drought berries. WVMJ

 

[jamesngalveston]

I am pretty sure that different berries will give different amount of juice.
as a kid in north la...we had huge juicy berries, while now in south Texas there smaller and not near as juicy, maybe that is the difference.