Rhubarb Processing

[lockwood1956]

I suspect its a silk purse/sows ear kind of thing......


who knows....

[Cellar_Rat]

I suspect its a silk purse/sows ear kind of thing......


who knows....

I know what you mean - very similar, but plums is not grapes. Never 'aver been never will be.

I think reducing the water content might help.

[David]

Processed my rhubarb today.

15.8 kg of frozen, chopped stems defrosted in 2 giant plastic colanders that sit perfectly in the tops of my 4 gall ex-honey buckets and after I had 8 litres of juice changed method and pressed the pulp to get another 5.4 litres of juice, so 85% extraction overall which was much more than I expected.

The juice that flowed from the defrosting rhubarb (great tip) was absolutely clear (so also ideal for use in drinking juices), whilst the pressed juice was cloudy (but pasteurising very often gets sediment to drop).

What surprised me was the SG reading of 1.018 for the juice, as the sugar content is given as 1% in 'Must', 1.1% here http://www.calorie-counter.net/fruit...es/rhubarb.htm and 1% on supermarket labels.

[David]

I've put on 3 batches of rhubarb (1pt), apple (1l carton juice) & 1l WGJ, using steam extracted, pressed and freeze/defrost-drip rhubarb juice for comparison.

[David]

As the rhubarb season is almost here I thought I'd post the results of above comparison.

I used 3 type of juice, freeze/defrost/drip, juice pressed from the pulp after 'dripping' and steam extracted juice.

The dripped juice (LH of pic) was a clear as tap water and that pressed from the pulp afterwards was coloured and cloudy (RH of pic). The steamed juice was a very rhubarby red, but I don't have any left as that freezing weather burst the last bottle in my shed:



Best wine was from the dripped juice (someone's going to say told you so), but that made from juice pressed from pulp that would otherwise have been thrown out was a very close 2nd. The wine from the steamed extracted juice (that bit of colour soon went) was a poor 3rd and I won't bother doing that again.

I'm already starting to plan freezer space and put out feelers for surplus rhubarb.

A reminder I how much I got out of 15.8 kg of rhubarb by using both drip and press methods:

I had 8 litres of juice changed method and pressed the pulp to get another 5.4 litres of juice, so 85% extraction overall