North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Tom Olenio <tolenio@sentex.net>]

Hello,

I have used the Victorio food strainer and the Italian made Gulliver strainer 
and although both
claim to be for grapes, and the Victorio even has a special grape spiral, 
neither are optimal for
grapes.

Victorio image;
http://www.wisementrading.com/canning/foodstrain.jpeg

Gulliver image;
http://www.wisementrading.com/canning/tomato_machine.jpeg

The problem is that grape seeds are like tiny rocks and jam against screens.  
The Victorio's
grape spiral clogged on me.  The spiral jammed with a grape seed plug, and 
the juice in the
hopper could not even reach the screens the plug was so solid (try and get 
that apart without a
mess)..  The Gulliver works differently and there is only a single pass by 
the strainer and is
less apt to jam, but the seeds are like stones against the screen.  You are 
in fear that you
would break it.

Possibly an expert can tell us if grape seeds grinding past a stainless steel 
screen will give
the pulp/juice an off flavor from added tannin (I think) from the seeds.  I 
don't know about
this.

These devices work best with soft seeds like those found in tomatoes, 
currants, and the like.
And if you want to use them for grapes you will need to stem the grapes, and 
that can take hours
if you are doing a lot.

You can build a small grape press for under $20 that will work 200% better.

Jeff Summit's Cider Press
http://web.bham.ac.uk/GraftonG/cider/press1.htm

Save the food strainers for soft seeded fruit, applesauce (etc.).  Trust me.

Later,
Tom

Doug Woodard wrote:

> Del, you may want to use a Victorio Strainer or one of the similar
> devices for separating skin and seeds from fruit flesh that were discussed
> on the list a while back.
>
> Otherwise, it should be perfectly straightforward jam production according
> to the standard recipes with pectin. You can also get low-sugar pectin
> (Pomona's?), a little trickier but feasible and gives better flavour to my
> taste.
>
> I have heard good things about Valiants but I would be interested in your
> report about how they turn out in jam.
>
> Is the reason why you can only grow Valiants coldhardiness or season
> length?
>
> Doug Woodard
> St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
>
> On Fri, 20 Sep 2002, del stubbs wrote:
>
> >
> > We are celebrating  our first harvest of valiants, potent flavored little
> > ones they are. Was very encouraging to see the beautiful grapes down at 
> > the
> > Uof M during the nafex conference, but if all we can grow here up nort is
> > valiants I don't think we are doing too bad.
> > Recently I saw grape jam for sale , looked here at home in the  Joy of
> > Cooking book - and no such recipe. I am not a jelly fan, so this seems 
> > like
> > a good way to go.   Any clues?  Thanks, Del
>
> _______________________________________________
> nafex mailing list
> nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
> Most questions can be answered here:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex
> File attachments are accepted by this list; please do not send binary 
> files, plain text ONLY!
> Message archives are here:
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/nafex
> To view your user options go to:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/nafex/XXXX@XXXX (where XXXX@XXXX is
> YOUR email address)
> NAFEX web site:   http://www.nafex.org/

--
Thomas Olenio
Ontario, Canada
Hardiness Zone 6a