Preserving fruit juice

[dave45]

Apple season is upon us again and I will no doubt have far too many again.. last year I made cider and still haven't drunk it all... so this year I would like to preserve apple juice as such - what is the best way?
So far I have frozen the juice in a plastic milk bottle which works ok but I don't have much space in the freezer...
Kilner bottles look stupidly expensive and impractical (who has a pan that tall to water-bath them?)...
I produce the juice by steam extraction so it is likely to be pasteurised or sterilised to start off with....
Hoever many years ago I did bung it straight into a (heated) screwtop bottle whilst hot... when I opened it weeks later there was mould over the top :-(

[diggernotdreamer]

I do apple juice in wine bottles. If you put it into the bottles and it went mouldy, you may have to revisit the way you did it. So if you think your juice is pasteurised already, put it into the hot sterlised bottles and pop them into the oven on 100 celcius for about 20 minutes, (make sure your juice is hot before it goes into the bottle, I am not familiar with steam extraction), get them out and leave them on their sides until cool, they will make a good seal. They should keep now for a very long time

[dave45]

do you cork your wine bottles?

or re-use the Stelvin screwtops?

I guess I could use beer bottles and crown corks?

[diggernotdreamer]

I use the screw top wine bottles, also have a quantity of the swing top beer bottles that I use

[ina]

We always used to fill steam-extracted juice in ordinary bottles with a rubber cap on them - if there was a little mould on top, we took it off and drank it anyway... Didn't kill us, but I suppose one should be careful with that!

[dave45]

Just processed a batch of red eater windfalls into 3 screwtop wine bottles plus a bit left over... no problems with the method, so thanks for that DND... I'll check them in a week or two and let you know...

Better start drinking some more wine to liberate some more bottles :-)

[diggernotdreamer]

hope it works out for you Dave. How did you get along with those little yellow tomatoes I sent you the seeds for, did you manage to grow any?

[dave45]

Little yellow tomatoes doing well a.t.m.and being harvested but TBH I'm not sure whether they are yours or some seeds I got from ebay, sorry. My record-keeping is a little lax, sorry !

But back to the apple juice....

I filled the bottles to the brim at 100C then screwed down the cap.... after cooling the level is about 1cm below the Stelvin collar - i.e. a 2" drop in level. No apparent leaks so I am assuming I have very low-pressure sterile water vapour above the juice -is this correct/normal? All 3 bottles exactly the same...

If I'd used wine bottles with corks would this contraction pull the corks right inside the bottle?

[boboff]

It is normal yes.

You cork should hold the vacuum

I bottled juice in glass bottles with brand new screw caps, pasteurized and they still went mouldy. You could try Jam jars as well? ( once hot filled and capped, put in simmering sauce pan for 40 minutes)

[tosca]

Thanks for all that info, I've been meaning to look up this very same subject. Presumably you can do any juice the same way? I will probably use large screw jars with new lids as this is what I have.

And a water bath as I do have a pan deep enough and a gas ring outside to fit it on.

[diggernotdreamer]

The way I do my apple juice is a bit different. After juicing, I put into the bottles and stand in a water bath, I have my probe thermometer and get the juice up to 68 c and hold it there for a few minutes, I do stir it from time to time with a long stick type thing to mix the hot and cold juice together, after that, I put the pasteurised juice into the hot bottles and put on the sterile lids, and then put into the oven for about 15 minutes. I am considering warming the juice in a pan to that point in future as you do get some stuff that rises to the top, bits of pulp and stuff which I try and remove and keep topping up with juice, then putting into the hot jars and then into the oven. Some people don't bother about the oven bit, but to be honest, I just do it to be on the safe side with all the passatta I jar up as well and have never had any problems with mould or jars and bottles going off.

If the tomatoes you have Dave are really rambling and small, they are probably the Broad Ripple Yellow Currant

[dave45]

Tosca - in Bulgaria they seem to have much better preserving kit than in the UK coz everyone does it!... wish I could get those cheap one-shot lids that they use... so don't they have specialist juice-preserving methods over there?

[dave45]

Update:

opening one of these screwtop wine bottles of juice results in a load scary POP! - an implosion which sucks the sealer/insert disc (in the lid) right into the bottle and can cause you to nearly drop the bottle if you are not expecting it !

Looks like my guess was correct - this method produces a serious vacuum.

[tosca]

Tosca - in Bulgaria they seem to have much better preserving kit than in the UK coz everyone does it!... wish I could get those cheap one-shot lids that they use... so don't they have specialist juice-preserving methods over there?

They must do Dave as we were given some home made stuff recently which OH liked as he has a sweet tooth, but it was far too sweet for me. However, our Bulgarian is still not brilliant so asking is not an option. We are finding stuff out slowly and next year will be more prepared.

As for bottles, jars and tops are concerned, I will very much miss the cheap and plentiful supplies here if ever we have to go back. In the markets we have a choice of used or new glass all with new lids available from white through to decorated and gold, and as you say, cheapy use once push-ons and even beer bottle tops.