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  • From: Don Yellman <don.yellman@webformation.com>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Juicing Aronia
  • Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 14:53:36 -0400

John:

1. I have 3 mature Aronia bushes here (Viking) that I have never bothered to
pick, but this season, when they were particularly full of berries, I decided
to pick and process them all. Two full 5-gallon buckets of clusters snipped
off with a small scissors. I waited until they were fully mature and very
dark purple, with none of the berries showing any red, and a few perhaps past
their prime and beginning to dry up a bit. These berries hang on until the
bitter end, and birds and animals never touch them. I removed each berry
individually from its cluster, then rinsed them vigorously several times,
ending up with close to 5 gallons net berries. As it turned out, that was
plenty.

2. The only reason I can see to process these berries at all is for the purported
health benefits of their anthocyanins, and their deep purple color which is capable of
turning just about anything purple. I do not totally discount the health claims. I
just don't know. But I certainly believe purple berries are a healthy food. There is
no reason to process them for their flavor, since they have no fruit flavor that I can
detect, although they are very highly astringent, which I take to mean acidic, and the
ideal environment for the presence of anthocyanins. Aronia juice is almost always sold
as a very minor (2% or less) component of a blend with other, sweeter juices that have
some flavor. I think products like Trader Joe's Aronia blend contains about this
amount of Aronia, in the form of "reconstituted" juice produce somewhere in
central or eastern Europe. I make quite a bit of apple juice (cider) here, and had the
vague idea of blending a little Aronia juice in each
gallon, where the astringency might be welcome with the sweet juice, and the
Aronia would improve the nutrition of the cider and turn it a nice purple
color.

3. Aronia is quite a dry berry, and I am afraid if you try to process these
berries in your centrifugal juicer, you will end up with little to no juice.
I first tried my steamer/juicer, but after nearly an hour of boiling found
the berries still nearly intact, and began to mash them with a potato masher.
That removed more of the juice, mixed with water from the steam, but not
nearly all of it. I ended up finishing this batch with a small jelly cone,
utilizing a wooden pestle, which removed all of the juice and left only seeds
and dry skins behind. For the next two batches, I simply boiled hell of out
of the berries for an hour, after adding a good amount of water, mashed
them, and processed them all through the jelly cone. It was very tedious
work, but I ended up with more than 3 full gallons of very dark Aronia juice,
which currently resides in my freezer. I figure I have enough Aronia juice
to blend with over 50 gallons of apple cider, should I choose to do so. It
is, of course, not pure juice, since I added water to boil the berries, and
the steamer/juicer also adds water as it operates, but if you tasted this
stuff I think you would agree it is as pure as you would want it.

4. The bottom line here is I don't think you will produce significant
amounts of Aronia juice without boiling and softening the berries, then
forcing them through a strainer like a jelly cone. If you have only a small
amount of berries, you might be able to knock off this job in about 90
minutes, but I will have to think about it before I process any Aronia
berries next season. If I end up not using the 3 gallons I already have I
probably won't bother.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA




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