With a rich harvest of apples, the mistress raises the question: how to process the fruit with maximum benefit.
Most often, apples are made from jam, jam, compote. But there are those who, without fear of difficulty, embarks on a more complex production process - the preparation of apple juice. Moreover, now there are all conditions for this, as in any specialized store you can buy a juicer at a bargain price.
But some housewives squeeze the juice out of apples in the old fashioned way: using a press or a usual cloth napkin (pouch).
Despite its excellent taste, the juice often goes cloudy. Most often, the hostess is satisfied. But what if she wants to lighten it up?
To do this, you first need to figure out why the juice turns out just that way.
Reason 1. If the juice is squeezed using a press, then before that, the apples are ground in a meat grinder, blender, mortar, using a grater. The result is a slurry of apples or even mashed potatoes. When pressing on the press, the smallest particles of pulp go through the fabric along with the juice, which make the juice cloudy.
Tip: To make the juice with a minimum amount of pulp, it is better to grind apples in a mortar, pre-chopped with a sharp knife, or grate on a medium grater. Then during the spinning of the pulp will remain on the fabric.
Reason 2. The juice turns turbid with accelerated pressing, because with a lot of pressure, the pulp is squeezed out along with the juice.
Tip: No need to artificially increase the rate of separation of juice from the pulp. Reason 3. For making juice, the apple variety was incorrectly chosen or overripe fruits with too soft pulp were used.
Tip: It is necessary to choose varieties with firm, but juicy pulp. For example, Antonovka, Grushovku, Anis, Aport. Apples should not be overripe, crumpled and soft. Such fruits are best left for cooking jam or jam.
But what to do if juice preparation is complete, but it turned out to be muddy?
How to lighten apple juice at home
There are several ways to achieve the desired result.
Option 1. The easiest way is filtering. Strain the juice through 4-6 layers of gauze or a filter specially acquired for this.
Option 2. If you have free time, you can do the following.
- Pour freshly squeezed juice into a saucepan, put on fire and heat to 85 °, soak at this temperature for 5-10 minutes. In no case should the juice boil!
- Then pour the hot juice into glass bottles or jars and seal her cork tightly.
- Put in a cool place for 1-2 months. Usually during this time there is a self-clarification of the juice.
Option 3. If you want to get clarified juice in a few hours, proceed as follows.
- Leave the casserole or bowl of freshly prepared apple juice on the table so that it will settle for a while. Then carefully pour it into another dish, pre-covering it with several layers of gauze.
- Put the container with the juice on the stove and heat up to 85 ° in the water bath. At this temperature, the juice warms up well, but, as in the first case, it should not boil. Foam, which appears on the surface, remove with a skimmer.
- After such a “bath” move the container with the juice to another container filled with ice water. In extreme cases - very cold. While the juice is cool, do not move the pan, and do not mix the juice, as it should stand. In the process of cooling, the smallest particles of pulp will settle to the bottom, and the top layer of juice will become more transparent.
- Now try to pour this settled juice into another container as carefully as possible. If you have a rubber tube, use it just as you pour wine from one bottle to another. If the juice is not transparent enough, let it settle for a while and then repeat the procedure.
Mistress to note
If you want to keep the juice before winter, pour it into the pan, heat it almost to the boil. Hot pour into glass jars or bottles. Put in a pan with hot water. Pasteurize at 85 ° for 20-25 minutes.
Store juice in a dark, cool place at about 12 °.
If during storage you notice that the juice has become turbid or gas bubbles have appeared, indicating that fermentation has begun, you need to open the container with the juice, boil the juice and use it as soon as possible to make compote or jelly.
