North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Mark Lee" <markl@nytec.com>]

Ed,

Thanks for introducing me to steam juicers.  I had never heard of them before.  It appears to be an efficient process for extracting the juice.  I am curious about one thing.  The steam extracts the juice by slowly breaking down the cell walls causing the fruit to collapse under its own weight.  Gravity then pulls the juice down to the bottom of the juicer where it collects in a pan.  Since the fruit isn't manually crushed and is essentially filtered by the remaining pulp, what of value does this process not extract?  For example, do most of the sugars get extracted from the pulp?

-Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Ribes60@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2003 5:24 PM
To: Nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [NAFEX] Steam juicer

First, I would like to say that I do not have any intrest in the Mehu-Liisa line of products. I bought one through the internet because a friend told me about it, she also grows currants and gooseberries.  The internet URL for the site is:
http://store.yahoo.com/steam-juicers/index.html
The location is in Trumansburg, NY and the tel no is: 607-387-6716. My unit came to me today and I had about 5 quarts of black currants that were just a bit too ripe to sell, so I tried it out with them. I could not believe the amount of juice - I got about 2/3 of a gallon of clear very rich juice. I need to experiment with the amount of sugar to add and I think that the juice recovered will need to be diluted by at least an equal amount of water, maybe twice the amount. It takes about an hour to extract the juice and it can be canned as you fill the jars without a waterbath. Check the website,. I already have plans for combinations of berries, and red currants without straining and waiting.

Ed Mashburn

Northumberland BerryWorks
707 Front Street
Northumberland, PA 17857
(570) 473-9910