(Hopefully) All juice Mulberry

[dorfie]

Hey all! As I am typing this 30 lbs of mulberries are juicing in my steam juicer!
It has been a bumper year for mulberries! the rain that we have had is about perfect and we haven't had any major storms hit our particular corner of the would while they were ripening so is was able to get a lot more than i have in the past!
hopefully i post these pictures right....

They aren't very good, took them in a hurry with my phone.
I have been doing the shaking method with my trees to get a lot of berries faster. then sorting the unripe, the twigs, and leaves out.

I have kept them frozen while i have picked them all

Hope this turns out good! will try to keep updating!

 

[Julie]

looks good! I have a mulberry but the birds are way faster than I am on getting any berries. Keep us posted on your progress.

 

[dorfie]

I juiced 12 lbs last night and got about a Gallon and a half of juice. There must be some water weight since a Gallon is 8 lbs and 1.5 * 8 is 12 and I have pulp left over....oh well! I was thinking of simmering the extra to reduce it down to 3.5 gallons or so, what does everyone think?

 

[BernardSmith]

I don't think that it is a good idea to heat fruit juice - that is likely to set the pectins and that will result in a cloudy wine that you will not easily (if at all) clear... Heat is great for jam but is - as the doctor might say - contra-indicated for wine. What you might do is freeze the juice and then allow it to thaw and as it thaws collect only the volume you are looking for. The resulting thawed juice will have more of the sugars concentrated and more of the fruit flavors concentrated too.

 

[dorfie]

But don't we heat the juice to concentrate it for an f-pack? And when I steam the juice its heated, I won't boil the juice just simmer some of it so it gets more concentrated.

 

[dorfie]

I don't think that it is a good idea to heat fruit juice - that is likely to set the pectins and that will result in a cloudy wine that you will not easily (if at all) clear... Heat is great for jam but is - as the doctor might say - contra-indicated for wine. What you might do is freeze the juice and then allow it to thaw and as it thaws collect only the volume you are looking for. The resulting thawed juice will have more of the sugars concentrated and more of the fruit flavors concentrated too.

But don't we heat the juice to concentrate it for an f-pack? And when I steam the juice its heated, I won't boil the juice just simmer some of it so it gets more concentrated.
Plus mulberry is so dark i am not sure that it will ever be "clear"!

 

[Julie]

The steam is not creating the juice to boil and it is not being heated for a prolong period of time. Agree with BernardSmith, cooking the juice to reduce it will set the pectin in it and that is extremely difficult to clear.

 

[dorfie]

The steam is not creating the juice to boil and it is not being heated for a prolong period of time. Agree with BernardSmith, cooking the juice to reduce it will set the pectin in it and that is extremely difficult to clear.

Ok so 100% juice is all the higher i can go concentration wise?

 

[BernardSmith]

Freezing, thawing and capturing the "first run" of the thawed juice will boost the "concentration" as you are removing some of the water by freezing rather than boiling... With apple cider , for example - and I assume it is the same with mulberries - you can double the amount of sugar through this method although when it doubles you lose about 2/3 of the volume (because you don't permit that volume of water in the juice to thaw - and so with no added sugar you can get a must with an SG of about 1.090 but if you start with 3 gallons of juice you will be fermenting about 1 gallon... but if you want a gravity of about 50 percent more than the straight juice will give you you can collect more of the thawing juice

 

[dorfie]

Juicing the last 3 gallons now!
Maybe if i have a LOT of extra juice i will try the freezing method to concentrate it to 3 gallons or so, otherwise i will just make some jelly with the extra fruit Nummy!

 

[Julie]

I'm not sure if I would want to concentrate the juice. Mulberry is not a mild flavor to begin with and I would be concern with it becoming too strong in flavor.

 

[dorfie]

I'm not sure if I would want to concentrate the juice. Mulberry is not a mild flavor to begin with and I would be concern with it becoming too strong in flavor.

Julie, i am using the "White Mulberry" (Morus Alba) hybrid species of mulberry this is one that has a more mild flavor, sometimes described as watery. The Mulberry that you may be talking about could be Morus Nigra (Black Mulberry) or the native Morus Rubra (Red Mulberry) which both have a stronger flavor profile. Both of these are also not hardy in Minnesota, the best that we can get are crosses between Alba and Nigra or Rubra.
That's why i wanted to try to do all juice because when i have watered it down in the past it hasn't been as full and flavorful as i would like.
I'm running the pulp now! almost there!

 

[dorfie]

I got around 4 gallons of steam juiced juice from my 30 lbs of mulberries!

I think that i am going to take some to make jelly and then i will try your Freezing process BernardSmith, with around a gallon of juice.
just put in an order for yeast and other supplies because i looked and OOPS! i was pretty much out of everything! so i will post an update once i get everything and test for acid.
Anyone have an estimate how much tannin i should put in?

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Or, you can skip steam juicing them and use the whole fruit, after thawing crush them up in a bucket, put them in a fermentation bag and squeeze out the juice, put the back back in the fermentor and make your 100% that way. Metal pans and acidic fruit dont go well together as in your pics. Your pulp has all the stems in it, you can keep trying to extract more flavor but really what is left over after steaming or pressing mulberries is going to start extracting stuff from the stems, not good eats We have an Ilinois Everbearing and did the shake and sort, froze and sqeezed and made a morat with honey from them, right now it has sort of a concord grape concentrate taste, hoping that ages out a little. WVMJ

 

[dorfie]

Or, you can skip steam juicing them and use the whole fruit, after thawing crush them up in a bucket, put them in a fermentation bag and squeeze out the juice, put the back back in the fermentor and make your 100% that way. Metal pans and acidic fruit dont go well together as in your pics. Your pulp has all the stems in it, you can keep trying to extract more flavor but really what is left over after steaming or pressing mulberries is going to start extracting stuff from the stems, not good eats We have an Ilinois Everbearing and did the shake and sort, froze and sqeezed and made a morat with honey from them, right now it has sort of a concord grape concentrate taste, hoping that ages out a little. WVMJ

I have never had that flavor come through my mulberry wine...of course i have never made a morat. i considered it this year to add body, but i am going to do just juice this time.
How old is your mulberry? mine seems to need a year before it really starts tasting ok, longer the more fruit i use,and meads take longer to age don't they?
On the crush front, i already juiced them all, but when i have done comparisons between steam juiced and whole fruit the juice has always been better to me. i don't really worry about the stems, mine don't seem to want to fall off no matter what, and they don't seem to detract from the wine...at least not that i have notice!

 

[dorfie]

Ok, so I have the juice all ready now. So once my yeast arrives I'll test acid and pitch the yeast. I was wondering if you guys thought it would be a good idea to add a winexpert red grape concentrate to this? Or some banana water?

 

[Julie]

I wouldn't add banana water but I would just slice up a banana and put that in

 

[dorfie]

That doesn't add banana flavor? Whenever I have added it I was told that it needs to be boiled for 30 minutes to drive off the banana flavor. Guess I've never tried it that way!

 

[fivebk]

Keep the extra juice to top up with. You will need something, it might as well be straight juice

BOB

 

[Julie]

No it will not cause a banana flavor. Where did you get the information that you had to boil bananas for 30 minutes?