How Much Steamed Juice Should I Use?

[smokegrub]

I recently purchased a 10 liter Mehu Liisa steam juicer and have finished steaming some apples and some pears. Next up, I will be doing some frozen blueberries. Now, the question is, how much steamed juice should I use in a 5-gallon batch?

Mehu Liisa says, "When making wines from juices, usually 1-2 pints are sufficient to provide all of the flavour necessary for a gallon. Under no circumstances should you attempt to use a full gallon of juice to make the wine, as the resultant liquid as well as possessing an excess of acid will have an overpowering flavour...in many instances it is better to take the weight of the fruit that is known to yield a good wine and use the liquid from it to prepare the brew."

Elsewhere on the web I have seen recommendations to use much more steamed juice. For example, one recommendation was to use 4 gallons of steamed apple juice in a 5 gallon batch!

It seems to me that Mehu Liisa's suggestion to use the juice from the fruit recommended by weight in a given recipe makes sense. If not, why steam juice since you would be "wasting" valuable fruit that could have otherwise been used in the wine?

Accordingly, unless you folks know that I should proceed otherwise, I plan to use the Mehu Liisa's recopmmendations. For example, I will juice 15 pounds of blueberries and use that juice to make a 5 gallon batch of wine.

I look forward to your feedback.

 

[NorthernWinos]

I use a pound or so more fruit for each gallon of wine. I weight the fruit....like if I should use 18# for a 6 gallon batch I will juice up 22 pounds and get varying amounts of juice, depending on the fruit.


I use 18 to 20 quarts of apple juice for a 6 gallon batch of apple wine....that is about the only wine I use that much juice. I have done some grape wine and used 18 quarts, but I had flushed the grape pulp with a quart or two of water to get all the goodness out of the grapes, so my grape juice is deluted....PLUS....I think our steamed juice has a fair amount of steam vapors in it if you steam for a longer period of time.


Use your own ideas, but keep track of how many pounds of fruit and how many quarts of juice you used for a said batch...then you can compare with the next batch.


I think your 15# of be okay if that's all you have. Are you going to add anything else to the wine to give it body???


I think Waldo has added the pulp to the must in a bag to get some more goodies out of the pulp, but with many fruits there isn't much left to the pulp.


I did a 5 gallon batch of blueberry wine when I first got started making wines...in my records I used 15.5# [because that was all I had] and 2 1/2 bottles of WinExpert Red Grape Concentrate....it was a very nice red wine.

 

[stormbringer]

I ask the same question about a month ago.





The answer was, in effect, ifyou steam 30 pounds of fruit and it yields 9 quarts of juice, and the recipe calls for 30 pounds of the same kind of friut, the 9 quarts of juicewould be equivalent tothe 30 lbs. of fruit.


Keep notes on weight/juice extracted when using the steamer because the yield is said to vary from batch to batch.

 

[smokegrub]

stormbringer:

That is what Mehu-Liisa recommends. I am just seeking confirmation from those who "have been there and done that"!

 

[smokegrub]

Ended up with 8 quarts apple juice, 9 quarts pear juice (20 lb pears) and 11 1/2 quarts blueberry juice (18 lb frozen berries). Now, if I can just free up some carboys!

 

[NorthernWinos]

You've been busy...anxious to see the wines going.