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How to make apple juice?
There are several phases:
1) Collect, sort and wash the apples;
First of all, it is necessary to collect and to sort the apples carefully, especially if they were collected from the ground. Wash the apples and put them into a bucket to let water to leak down. Do not use dirty, damaged or mildewed apples for juice, because even some damaged apples can spoil the taste and store period of the product, despite the heat treatment. Use different sorts of apples to make the juice more fragrant and tastier. Autumn sorts of apples are good for juice, because they have firm flash and contain more juice. The apples should be ripe enough, but not too overripe. Overripe apples have too loose flash, it is badly squeezed and the output is cloudy with a high content of pulp. Pressing unripe apples the juice output will be poor and it will have a sour taste. You can dilute sour juice with water and add some sugar, but the juice will not be such healthy and tasty as the juice of ripe apples.
2) Crush the apples with the help of crusher;
Then the apples must be crushed. After crushing, apples turn into a homogenous mass, which starts to extract juice and is pressed well. Use a manual crusher, fixed, for example, between two benches above the container for crushed apples or use an electric crusher. Ordinary apple cutting, for example, with a knife is not sufficient. The goal of crushing is destruction of apple cell structure. The higher is level of crushing- the bigger is juice extraction. In order to increase juice yield, crushed apple mass should be left for several hours. At the bottom of the container with crushed apples you can see a self-flowing juice extracts. It is worth to note that during apple crushing process, using a crusher, apple seeds remain intact, thus avoiding unwanted bitterness imparted by crushed seeds in the juice.
3) Press the crushed apples using a press;
Fix the screw press with four screws to the table or two wood bars. To use a hydraulic press it is enough to put it on a table or a bench.
After that, place the crushed apple mass into the basket. The fabric for filtration is placed into the basket to get pure juice with the small amount of pulp. Wrap up the edges of the fabric, covering the apple mass and put the piston on the top. Set the basket exactly in the center and press juice using the screw or jack. The pressure should be increased by degrees, so that the juice has a time to separate from apple pulp. When the juice is flown out, the basket and tray are removed and the piston with apple pomace is pushed out. One pressing cycle takes 5-10 min. (apple mass loading, pressing, unloading the basket). Depending on the sort, apple ripeness and crushing level juice yield is about 50 - 70% of the apple weight. Thus, in one cycle can be squeezed 5-7 liters of apple juice using a press with a 10 liters basket.
4) Pasteurize or freeze;
The juice is pressed - what to do next? The fresh apple juice can be stored in the cold for 4-5 days. If you want to save the juice for winter, the juice should be pasteurized and poured in jars or bottles. Pasteurized apple juice can be stored for 1-2 years.
For more information about juice preparation for winter and its storage read "recipes / preparations for winter / apple juice for winter."
After using a press and a crusher, rinse all the parts contacting with juice and dry them thoroughly. Keep the press and the crusher in a dry dark place. Storage conditions influence your press’s and crusher’s longevity.
You may press the juice not only from apples, but also from pears and berries - raspberries, red or black currants, chokeberry, from vegetables-beets, carrots, pumpkins and even from rhubarb.
Helpful hints:
Try to make the juice from apples with pumpkins! Crush a pumpkin together with apples and squeeze the resulting mass with the apple press. Pumpkin juice will give a mild flavor and soften the apple acid.
If you have a lot of pears make pear or apple-pear juice. This juice is sweeter and your children will enjoy it.
Delicious and healthy juice can also be made of other vegetables, such as carrots and beets. For carrots and beets crushing use our electric crusher ESE-055.
Add a few chokeberries to the apples. The juice will obtain reddish color and pleasant rough taste.
Experiment by pressing juice of other vegetables, fruit or berries. For example, you can make cherry juice, just fill the basket with berries (not picking stones) and press the juice. You can also try to make tomato juice, crushing them before pressing process.
If you decide to make wine from apples, leave crushed apples for about 1-2 days in a clean container in well ventilated place before pressing. It will increase juice yield and make wine more fragrant.
We will be glad to hear your advice and recommendations, and will add them to our website with pleasure!