Grape juice is a popular and flavourful beverage that is full of antioxidants. Making grape juice at home is easy and doesn’t take many ingredients or equipment to produce.
There are various methods to extract grape juice, including steam juicing. It’s a great way to produce concentrated grape juice with a higher shelf-life.
To get the most out of your grape juice, you need to follow the right steps. So, we’ll walk you through the entire process and explain what it takes to make the perfect homemade grape juice with a steam juicer.
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The Benefits of Homemade Grape Juice
Grapes are nutrient-rich seeds that contain vitamins and minerals. Pure grape juice provides necessary vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus. Also, it’s a fat-free and cholesterol-free beverage.
A 100% concentrated grape juice contains most nutrients and natural fruit sugar. So, a suitable amount of grape juice intake can –
Reduce the risk of potential blood clots
Maintain a healthy blood pressure
Reduce the formation of lipoprotein or bad cholesterol in your body
The high levels of antioxidants in grape juice reduce disease risk. Though, purple and concord grapes are more antioxidant-rich than other grape types.
The Best Method For Grape Juicing – Steam Juicer or a Mechanical Juicer?
There are two ways to make homemade grape juice one is using steam, and another is mechanical power.
Mechanical juicers extract grape juice through grinding or squeezing. There are fast-spinning blades that produce centrifugal force to execute the juicing process. You can get fresh grape juice with lots of nutrients still intact from the raw produce. Though, the shelf-life would be limited as it’s not pasteurized.
A steam juicer uses heat to break the cells of the fruit and extract clean juice. This process kills harmful enzymes, extending the shelf-life of your juice from months to years. It’s not messy, and the best part is you don’t need to squeeze your produce through a cheesecloth to get a clean result.
Making grape juice using steam is time-consuming but less troublesome than mechanical juicers. Though, which method is best depends on how you intend to use your grape juice.
If you want to make a large quantity of clean grape juice in a single go and store it for longer, then steam juicers are the best in the business. It’s better to know that pasteurized grape juice will have less nutrition compared to freshly prepared one from any mechanical juicer.
Finding the best Grapes for Steam Juicing
You can make grape juice more delicious and antioxidant-rich by choosing the best grapes that go well in the process.
It’s better to pick deep purple grapes for juicing. You can taste them to check if they feel sour or tart. Always go for ripened grapes as they taste sweet and will increase the flavor of your juice in some extant.
Concord grapes are the best for grape juice. You can also try mixing other types of grapes with concord to enhance the taste and to have a deep rich color appearance.
The Procedure – Step by Step
Making juice with a steam juicer is easy. all you have to do is monitor the process and wait for your juice collection. Here are five simple steps to produce the perfect grape juice using steam.
Step 1 – Wash your grapes
The first step is to give a proper wash to your selected grape cluster. Use clean water to remove dust or other foreign particles from individual grapes. You can submerge the entire bunch in the sink with cold water for the wash.
Step 2 – Trim the stems
It’s better to cut off the stem or the pedicel of the grape as there are poisonous parts of that plant. The ingestion of them can cause convulsions. Also, keeping the grape stem attached while steaming can decrease the flavor of your juice. You can also remove those stems before you wash the grapes.
Step 3 – Prepare your steam juicer
A typical steam juicer consists of three sections –
- The bottom pan for holding water for boiling
- The collection pan with a hose for juice collection and draining
- The perforated top pan with a lid that holds the ingredients and lets the steam through
After preparing your grapes, fill them inside the perforated pan, and close the lid properly. In the meantime, put water into the bottom pan and place the fully equipped steam juicer over a stove.
Step 4 – Star juicing and monitor the process
You can now start heating the water and bring it to a gentle boiling point. After that, turn down the heat as we don’t want a rolling boil, so keep the heat in check throughout the process.
It’s crucial to monitor the level of water in the bottom pan to avoid it from running dry as this can damage the steamer.
The average time a steam juicer takes is about 45 minutes to produce juice. You can see through the lid to check on the grapes. As time goes by, steam will make the grapes smaller and shriveled. In the end, all the grapes will pack to the bottom and form a flat layer of skin.
The extracted juice will start to fill the collection pan, and you are ready to get your clean, pasteurized grape juice.
Step 5 – Juice collection
From the beginning to the end, it takes around one hour to complete the juice extraction from your grapes. Use a mason jar to collect the juice. Simply open the hose clamp and let the juice drain in your container.
Canning process of the homemade Steamed grape juice
Canning could be a great option to preserve your grape juice for a long.
Prepare your juice container
Wash the jars in and out properly where you will store the juice. After that, put the jars in the oven and heat them under 150 to 200 degrees for sterilizing. Though, if you are willing to use a water bath canner, then you don’t need a sterilizing process.
Leave space when filling the container
It’s crucial to leave at least 1/4 inch of space in the brim of the jar. This ensures a vacuum seal as canning can make your juice expand a little due to the air being forced out from under the lid during the process.
Secure the lids
Before you go for the preservation, properly place the lids and make them finger-tight. If your jars are not sterilized, give them a five-minute water bath in a canner, and you are all set to enjoy the grape juice all year long.
The Right Use of Leftover Grape Juice Pulp
Flavored ice cubes: Fruit pulp ice cubes can be a great way to add some fruity flavor to your glass of water, as well as generates extra nutrients. Simply combine some fruit pulp and water in an ice cube tray and freeze for further use.
Baked products: You can use them in burgers or bread. Juicy fruit pulp will make a healthier version of your baked good.
Good of smoothies: When making your next breakfast smoothie, try adding some nutritious grape pulp to the blender. This will add flavor as well as texture to your smoothie.
Can You Make Wine From Pasteurized Grape Juice?
Pasteurized grape juice can’t be properly fermented. Therefore you will not get the overall status of the wine in the end product. However, you can prepare not-so-clear wine by using wine yeast in a precise procedure.
The Bottom Line
Grape juice is delicious and full of nutrients and antioxidants. It’s good for your health and takes little effort to make.
A steam juicer is an easy way to make grape juice because it is a clean process rather than a labor-intensive method. You also get a juice with longer shelf life, pasteurized, and clear appearance.
If you use a steam juicer properly when juicing greps, you will get the best results possible.