Today's crop is Raspberries. We have a couple of different varieties. The two bowls on the outside are called "Royal" raspberries; they're big and tend to have a purplish colour. They're not too sweet to eat raw, almost a bit bland, but they are excellent for jams and for juice. The middle bowl, well we just call them the regular raspberries - since there are a few different varieties (that we don't know the names of) of smaller kinds of raspberries. These are more what you'd expect to find in the general raspberry world, tasty to eat raw, as well as great for jams & juices.
#2- the part that collects the juice as it drips from the fruit, (you can't see the cone shape so well here), and the hose is where the juice can be drained, while it continues to drip. Close up picture below.
#3- the part that holds the fruit is like a big colander with a solid piece in the middle bottom of the colander. Close up below.
#4- far left, the lid, I won't explain.
Part #2 - Close up: you can see the cone shape in the middle, which is where the steam comes UP from the pot below, and steams the colander above (which holds the fruit).
Part #3 - Close up: the colander that holds the fruit, and in the center is a solid circle. It's where the cone opening is (underneath) and prevents the juices to go INTO the cone and down to the water pot at the bottom.
So to begin, I put the pot filled with water on the burner. Turn element on High (to get the water boiling) cover it with the juice catcher, top it with the colander, and fill the colander with fruit, to about the level of the line, and on goes the lid.
Usually one load of fruit takes about 45 - 60 minutes to steam out. I set the timer for 20 minute increments, so I can check the water in the pot, and top it up. (I keep a kettle with boiling water, so I can add to the water, without it stopping the steaming process. And at that time, I also drain whatever juice is there to drain.
This is how I set it up. I leave the hose hanging down into the pitcher below (measuring cup); it's hard to see the clamp on the bottom end of the hose, which is clamped shut, until I'm ready to drain some of the juice.
This is how it starts. The hose starts to fill as the juice catcher starts to fill up. The first time I drain the juice, I pour it back into the pot (on top of the fruit) just because it's new, and isn't very warmed up...yet.
This is how the juice catcher looks at the beginning as it starts to fill. Depending on the fruit, this catcher can fill up to the top of the cone, quite easily (like with our concord grape juice) so I'm always ready to drain it quickly if need be. Draining, just means pinching the clamp so the juice can flow out of the hose into the container below. I usually use a 2 cup measuring cup, and fill it to 1 cup or 2 cups, so I can track how much juice I'm collecting. With the concord grape juice, I drain the juice directly into the hot sterilized canning jars.
This is about halfway there. The fruit has shrunk down to about half.
This is how much juice I've drained so far (it's in a separate stainless pot, ready for the next step).
Shrunken even more, almost done.
Done & the berries are ready for the compost. It's hard to see in this picture,
but the raspberries have a lighter (drained out) look.
Re: stainless pot, ready for the next step. For every 2 cups of juice, I added ¼ cup of
sugar. I brought it to a boil, just to dissolve the sugar, then ladled the
juice into 500 ml jars, ready for canning.
9 - 500ml jars. (1 of them didn't fit into the canner, and will get used
soon), the other 8 jars went into the water bath canner for 15 minutes. The jar with all the black markings is the
one jar that has NO sugar in it; just straight raspberry juice!!
To serve: 1 jar of juice, and 1¼ jar of water, or sparkling water..... and enjoy!!!
Isn't this pretty? Clear raspberry juice, thanks to using the steam juicer. One of our best investment "tool" in the processing of foods.
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