Steam Juicing

[Jerry1]

gaudet, I'll be happy to watch over some of the blackberries for ya. My bushes only got set up this past winter and I didn't get but about 1 1/2 gallons. Then the drought started in and I'm not so sure I didn't loose a bunch of the vines. Plans are to expand the blackberry bedsthis year and put in a permanent irrigation for all of the plants and shrubs. This drought has cost me about $800 in shrubs alone. Lost all of the elderberry plants I put out last spring. Not going to happen again.


Jerry

 

[Bert]

Jerry1...You are getting to be a wildman with that steam juicer....they are great....have fun and enjoy

 

[Jerry1]

Waldo, I've been looking at the picture of your modified pot and I do not see any welding around the nipple sticking out of the pot. How did you hold that in place? Galvinized and stainless might be impossible to weld together anyway. When I start the pears in a few weeks thats going to take some time and lifting that upper section to check the water could get to be a pain in the fannie.

 

[Waldo]

The nipple is welded onto the pot

 

[PeterZ]

This is not a high temp operation, nor is there any pressure. If you don't have the ability to TIG weld the nipple in place, just epoxy it into the hole. Everything on the assembly only needs to be finger tight.

 

[Jerry1]

Thanks PeterZ. I had already thought of the epoxy. Thought maybe there was a "finger tight" way to do this and not use some kinda adhesive. I'm gonna drill a hole and make up my epoxy.

 

[Jerry1]

Update

Thought I'd spool this up and finish it off. I got the nipple put into the pail and makes it a lot easier to maintain the water level. Had a bear of a time finding a stainless steel nipple. Small town syndrome. Got all of the fruits steamed and was waiting to start making the wine. Got side lined and didn't get it done. This year a friend called and wanted to know if I wanted some plums. Well yeah. So I grabbed my stuff and took off to his place. He showed me the tree and I swear I have never seen a plum tree so loaded down with fruit. We spread out the tarps and started shaking the tree. About 20 min later we had about 18 gallons of plums in pails. There was still fruit but I had all I wanted. Brought it home sorted, sacked and froze 14 gallons. After freezing the wife steam juiced them. Wound up with 40 quarts of juice. I have 5 gallons in secondary at this time. Kept track of how much juice was given by the gallon bag (weighed on average 6 lbs) and that ended up being 2 1/2 quarts per gallon on average. So when I find a recipe that calls for 15 lbs of fruit I know 6 quarts of juice is what I need. So far I really like this steamer.

 

[Runningwolf]

Jerry can you post pictures of the pot and the nipple you added. What kind of epoxy did you use?

 

[gaudet]

Good to hear Jerry. I still haven't done anything with that blackberry juice, but fixing to. Been doing all sorts of home improvements so I've had little time for the ferments. But I am about to start up again.