Topic: Apple Juice

[tim]

Can't anywhere find means of preventing freshly pressed juice turning from lovely green, orange or pink to dirty brown in half an hour.

There are sugggestions that an acidulator or boiling helps??

[BarriedaleNick]

Add a campden tablet - used for brewing and designed to do just that Tim!  Its a Sulphur based compound (potassium or sodium metabisulfite)....

From a wine making forum

Many fresh fruits and juices turn brown when the fruit is cut or damaged, in the same way that an apple discolors when it is cut in half. This browning spoils the taste of the wine, but it can be prevented by dissolving one Campden tablet in each gallon of juice or must, or by dropping the crushed fruit into sulphited water, i.e. water containing one dissolved Campden tablet per gallon (or 4.5 litres). This will also help to destroy bacteria and wild yeasts.

[Digeroo]

For cut apples lemon juice does the trick.  Have you tried a small quirt of lemon?

[tim]

Campden tablet? Yes - for wine making, but for fresh drinking?
 No 'off' flavours?

Yes - lemon juice helps stop browning short term, but I find that it doesn't seem to help in juice. And makes it needing sugar. And how much to eg a pint?

[BarriedaleNick]

Tim - I haven't done it so I couldn't say for sure but I believe that the sulphur is converted by the acid present into sulphur dioxide leaving a little sodium behind which shouldn't affect the taste but I leave it for any chemists here to correct me..

The sulphur dioxide will also dissipate from the juice...

[tim]

Ah!

[Vinlander]

Try mixing it with another fruit that contains acid - even better if it's strongly coloured - to hide any tiny bit of brown.

If you've made blackcurrant cordial without much sugar then now is the time to mix it in - it works brilliantly with apple.  It's worth just freezing next years' blackcurrant juice without sugar in anticipation of the apple harvest.

Juice from my grapes is always sharper than the grapes themselves (even in London) so that usually does the trick too.

Next year try stocking the freezer with unsweetened blackberry juice too.

Actually, unsweetened blackcurrant is even better with pear juice.

Cheers.

[calendula]

it must depend on the apple as well as mine stay with their lovely colour - however a thought occurred to me - it was suggested to me to freeze all apples that were going to be used for juicing and we have so many apples I am glad to do this so we can juice when we want to - you thaw them out for a while in the sink in water and then juice them (we have a small press) so I am wondering if that helps them keep their colour  :-\

[tim]

Blackcurrants? Ah, we have some in the freezer. But that, surely, just disguises the brown - & it's 'off' flavour?
Assuming that the brown does give an 'off' flavour?

[Old Central]

Tim

Alternatively you can let them ferment in the bottle (use a sparkling water bottle in the fridge) and have sparkling apple juice, albeit cloudy but likely to be sweet. If you leave it too long it will go cider dry but is is a fascinating tasting experiment!

OC

[tim]

Can't wait for a ferment - need it now!

Back to the blackcurrant thing - it's the lovely apple colour that I want to keep.

[Morris]

I've not tried this with juice, but it might be worth experimenting:

One of my apple trees, an old unidentified variety, tends to brown very quickly when peeled.  I've found the best thing to stop this is a pinch of vitamin C powder (which I buy for breadmaking, Dove's farm) in the rinsing water; it works better than lemon juice and is easier.  Maybe you could add a little to the juice?  It is quite sharp but you don't need much.

Or possibly citric acid would do the same?

My other thought is that, if you only need a tiny amount of sugar to balance the flavour after adding acid, that isn't the end of the world?  You've still basically got your lovely home-produced juice, far fresher and better than any from the shops.

Good luck with your experimentation, hope you sort it out.

PS: Another thought which you could look into, I wonder if a steam juice extractor would solve the problem without any additives?

PPS: And answering your question on boiling, I bet that would be worth a go - or extracting juice from cooked fruit the old-fashioned way with a jelly bag - as stewed apples don't brown even without sugar.

[goodlife]

Code: [Select]

I wonder if a steam juice extractor would solve the problem without any additives?I've got one of those and unfortunately it don't work with apples...any berries yes, but apples turn into mush/sauce as the stem cooks them and hardly any juice is extracted.

[BarriedaleNick]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhX39Iw2m5w

I put this up from a recent prog - shows how Patassium metabisulphate (campden tablets) work...

[Palustris]

Our apple juice turns a lovely golden brown colour fairly quickly after making, but even the following day there are no 'off' flavours to it. We use a mixture of cooking (Bramley, Catshead or Rev Wilkes) and whichever eating apple is ready to use. So at the moment it is Crown Gold.

[Vinlander]

Blackcurrants? Ah, we have some in the freezer. But that, surely, just disguises the brown - & it's 'off' flavour?
Assuming that the brown does give an 'off' flavour?

When plum puree goes brown there is a definite flavour change - not exactly 'off' - more like the difference between wine and sherry - though I still don't like it.

Blackcurrant juice stops this happening in the same way that lemon juice does. Plums go so quickly that it's only possible to stop 90% of it - so yes the colour is useful.

With apples, as Palustris says, the brown is less taste change, much less of a problem - it's also slower -  but blackcurrants will still stop it.

I find sulphites of any kind quite unpleasant, citric acid is better, ascorbic acid (vitC) better still, but they all change the flavour of your apples - if you are going to do this then you might as well make something really delicious and uniquely flavoured by using your favourite sharp fruit.

[ARV]

My parents started making apple juice 10+ years ago, and had the same problem.
A crushed campden tablet was the solution. There was no discernible taste in the juice.

If you prefer your juice clear, then store in a 2 litre PET bottle overnight in the fridge and the sediment will sink to the bottom. you can then decant into a clean bottle or just poor from the bottle without disturbing the sediment.
The other option is to just shake the bottle and have cloudy apple juice.

Apple juice also freezes well if you have too much to drink in one go. Bottle in old PET (fizzy drinks) bottles or plastic milk bottles 9remembering to leave a gap for the liquid to expand into, and store upright in a freezer.

ARV

[pumkinlover]

thank you so much for asking this question Flighty, i have been watching with interest and have  just tried making some juice and added some campden powder- our local wine shop sells powder now not tablets. The resulting apple juice is  a nice green colour and tastes nice. I actually think that the taste is not as nice when the juice turns brown- there obviously is a need for a random double blind quality controlled experiment here! Do we taste with our eyes as well as our taste buds! Anyway our morning apple juice will be much nicer now thanks to you and the other forumers!
anne x

[Vinlander]

Sulphites are so common these days that many people don't notice them - my wife actually prefers the horrible bright yellow dried apricots from the supermarket to the lovely warm fruity unsulphited brown ones you get from traditional sources.

I can't taste tiny amounts of sulphites used to stop rots in wine (some can) but the quantities used to change the colour of oxidising fruit are a lot more noticeable.

If you have to have a quick fix then it's certainly much better to use VitC if you can afford it.

Cheers.

[pumkinlover]

Agree with you there Vinlander, we can buy unsulphited and organic apricots from a wholefood warehouse in sheffield and they are much nicer.

 will try the vit c on the next batch of aple juice as also prefer natural to chemicals. however i have been reassured by the information given by the other forumers as to what happens when you use the campden method.
anne x