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Can I use a juicer to prepare fruit for canning?

9K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  dowdeva 
#1 ·
Hello everyone,

This is my first post. I am trying my hand at making blueberry and grape jelly (NOT jam), and was wondering if, instead of using a food mill, followed by a jelly strainer, can I just run the fruit through my juicer?

I have an excellent Champion juicer based on the grind (not centrifuge principle). It seems like it would save a whole lot of steps, and extract the most juice, but I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere on any forum.

Thanks in advance!

dowdeva
 
#3 ·
I believe it would work fine for making jelly from the juice. However, the Champion is best for extracting juice from harder fruits and vegetables, like apples, carrots and beets.
For softer, juicier fruits, you get the most juice yield from a centrifugal juicer. One other benefit from the centrifugal juicer is that the natural pectins contained in the fruit skins are transferred to the juice-don't know if the Champ would do this as it separates the juice from the pulp kind of instantaneously.
If you plan to use the Champion, pass the extracted pulp through the juicer tube several times to get all the excess juice from it.

BTW, have you ever tried pushing frozen fruit through the Champ with the solid plate in place instead of the strainer plate? Wow! It's just like ice cream! Smooth and creamy-especially bananas! Give it a try sometime, you won't regret it.
 
#4 ·
Thank you both for your replies.

In response to foodnfoto's post, I never have tried making frozen ices from fruit, although I have recently thought about it, particularly as I live on a blueberry farm (blueberries, pecans, muscadine grapes...also, lots of wild mushrooms).

I was tempted last year but when I checked the recipes on the web from Champion, they added a whole lot of other things to make 'sherbert,' - like lecithin (to make it creamier, I suppose). However, thanks to your post, I think I will just shove a gallon of blueberries straight through the juicer with the solid plate in, with no additions.

Thanks again! This is a great forum!!!!!

Lisa

:)

Lisa
 
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