Has anyone ever made their own concentrate?

[Chateau Joe]

I like making a blueberry wine from a particular brand of blueberry juice. Now what I want to try is making a blueberry port with the same brand of juice. I want to intensify the flavors a bit by concentrating some of the juice. Has anyone ever tried making their own concentrate from juice? I'm worried if I heat it up it will change the flavor but then I have never tried anything like this before. What have some of you tried? Btw, this company does not sell frozen concentrates.

 

[seth8530]

I have made my own concetrate before via heating. It works just fine, but you need to realize that It will change the flavour profile..Perhaps a better method would be to freeze the juice and then let it unthaw into a container of your choice extracting the sweeter drippings and leaving behind the less sweet left overs. ( kinda wastefull I think but I have heard of people having good results.)

 

[seth8530]

Hi Seth,

Thanks for the concentrate help. I had a couple quick questions about your response. How hot did you allow it to get? Did you bring it to a boil? After heating how much did it change the flavor?

Thanks & Cheers
Joe

I ended up concentrating my apple juice and muscadine via boiling. So, it got pretty hot. The flavour change was not unpleasant' however, you might get a fruitier tasting wine if you freeze concentrate it instead. So, it is all up to you. Perhaps you could do a bench trial with one jug boiled and the other freeze concentrated.

Ie you freeze concentrate down first.. Then for the second part of the experiment you boil untill you reach the SG of the freeze concentrated one. That way you could compare them against each other on traits other than sweetness.

 

[Deezil]

To do it right, it would take a while with heat although your house will smell wonderful.

Boiling works but can lead to some problems other than changing the flavor

Double boiling would be the way i'd do it.. The volume loss would be gradual but it wouldnt burn or scorch the flavors in the juice - this is how you melt down chocolate, or fondue cheese usually

Its an indirect form of heat rather than a direct form of heat such as boiling

Freezing into a slushy is another option, then just strain out the ice chunks.. How well it works, depends a lot more on your patience though (saving the ice chips, reprocessing them again if any flavor or color was lost)

 

[Chateau Joe]

Thanks guys! I'm really looking for the sweetness factor since I am making a port. I'm going try filling a 2 lt. bottle, freeze it, then turn it upside down for the drippings. Thanks again!!

 

[seth8530]

Sounds like a plan! I bet if you refroze the drippings you could do even better, BTW dont forget to check out my step feeding calculator if you intend to stepfeed!

 

[saramc]

ChateauJoe...I would opt for freezing the juice you love so much and then drip thawing (much like what many do to make ice-style wines) or perhaps do a very monitored freeze and skim the ice crystals off the top as the start to collect (time consuming).

Have you ever tried: http://www.brownwoodacres.com/fruit-juice-concentrates/wild-blueberry-juice-concentrate/
Great stuff! I am hooked on their tart cherry, red raspberry and blueberry!!

There is also a great blueberry available at: http://www.homewinery.com/cgi-bin/concen.cgi You can give them a call and order the concentrate by the pint (phone orders only for that size).

 

[seth8530]

Seth,
You mentioned a step feeding spreadsheet or the such in ChateauJoe's post about blueberry concentrate making....would you mind sharing the link indicating where I can find this info?

Appreciate it!
Sara


My laptop crashed--this is SO how I feel. Had to borrow my teenager's system--he forgets that I bought each and every component that he used to build his monstrosity of a desktop. I swear the thing just needs some jet engines and our house could fly!! I guess I will tackle my laptop repair tomorrow--just could not bring myself to sit down with it tonight. I like these bats!!

Of course, BTW im posting this into the thread you are active in that way others can also read this.
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f71/my-step-feeding-calculator-new-improved-34497/

You need to use a pearson square to figure out how much juice you need to raise the sg because I have not added that into the equation yet.. However the spreadsheet and the example linked in my post will be most helpful I hope.