Steam juicer how does it work

Summary: The Steam juicer can have its benefit for some people that wish to preserve their soft produce in order to make juice concentrate, jams, jellies or syrups. For making juice, we feel its not optimal, since it destroys all the enzymes and leads to the destruction of other nutrients in the juice.

Fresh juicers preserve all the enzymes, and keep most of the other nutrients intact, but must be consumed very soon after it is made.. Here are some alternatives on how to preserve your produce while maintaining enzymes and retaining higher levels of other nutrients: Freeze soft fruits whole, that can later be thawed, and eaten whole, or placed into the blender to make fresh smoothies, or used as a topping on deserts, etc. Juice the produce in a fresh juicer, and then freeze the juice.

Farmers that process apples into apple cider most often do this. They store the apple juice in plastic milk-style jugs, and freeze them.

The sell them frozen, and when you want to drink them, you thaw and drink. You can read more about the best ways to store your juice here. Dehydration has been used for thousands of years to preserve produce. Purchase a dehydrator to dehydrate your fruits and vegetables preserving their enzyme content. We hope this article has taught you more about the difference between the steam juicer and a fresh fruit and vegetable juicer and have offered you some suggestions based on your needs.

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Order by Phone. General Questions. These nifty contraptions have multiple uses: T hey can double as a stock-pot, a veggie steamer, be used to cook pasta, and you can make not only juice, but syrups and jellies too. Here's the exact model I got. Click the image to see it on Amazon :. Why a steam juicer?

In the past, I only ever knew how to make fresh juice with a traditional juicer like the Omega juicer a fabulous machine. But now, my family makes both fresh and cooked juice. Each for its own merits. Both fresh and cooked juice have their place on a homestead. Fresh juice is amazing! You get tons of healthy enzymes and nutrients in fresh juice, because they haven't been cooked out.

However, fresh juice is also super perishable. That's what makes canned juice so worthy. It can stay on the shelf a long time, and it doesn't require any refrigeration. Then, in the middle of the winter, when fruits like grapes and berries are out of season, you can still pull out a jar of homemade grape juice for Christmas.

Besides creating jars of juice that can be stored on a shelf, I think the biggest advantage to using a steam juicer is the crazy amount of juice it lets you make, compared to a fresh juicing machine. How does a steam juicer work? Steam juicers work by stewing the juice out of the fruit. You bring some water in the bottom pot to a low boil, place a bunch of fruit in the top steamer, then let the the steam do the work. As the fruit heats up, the juices get extracted and run down into the middle section of the juicer.

A hose at the bottom of this section siphons the juice down into a pan, or right into your jars, if you do it that way. Pretty cool, huh? Preparing your fruit for juicing To produce the best tasting, sparkling clear juice, there's a little prep-work to do ahead of time.

The prep-work is different, depending on what kind of fruit you're juicing. Here's a brief run-down of what's needed for various fruit types:. Berries and grapes: Remove all stems and discard any damaged fruit. Then wash the fruit and place it in the steamer. Apples, pears, and other fruits with cores: Wash fruit, remove stems and check for blemishes, then cut into quarters.

Place cut fruit in the steamer don't worry about the cores or seeds. Cherries, peaches, plums and other stone fruits: Wash fruit, remove stems and check for blemishes, then remove the stone pit. Cut fruit into halves or quarters, depending on size and place in the steamer. If juicing any other fruit not mentioned above, just remember to remove any portions that you wouldn't normally eat before placing the fruit in the juicer.

Making the juice When it comes to making gallons and gallons of juice, a steam juicer is the absolute best way to go. Today I'm going to show you how to make grape juice specifically. However, if you buy the Victorio steam juicer, it comes with an instruction manual and recipes for other juices, jellies and syrups. What you'll need to make quarts of grape juice:. Steam juicer. Jar lifter. Water-bath canner with rack. Check out this kit ; it contains the water-bath canner, lifter, rack and other tools.

Yields quarts of juice. To get started, f ill the bottom pot of your steam juicer with about 5 quarts of water and bring to a rolling boil. Once the water boils, begin turning the temperature down until it maintains a low boil. Place grapes in the colander on top being careful not to overfill , cover and let the steam do its work. You can fit a ton of fruit in the colander steamer section which holds up to 8 quarts of fruit! But m ake sure the lid fits securely, or steam will escape and the steamer won't work properly.

If the lid sits ajar, remove some fruit. Note: If using sugar, just sprinkle it over the top of the grapes once the colander is filled. Another way is to sweeten the juice to taste by cooking it in a pot with sugar later, but to me this seems inefficient, since you can do it as suggested and eliminate an extra step--which when you're making a hundred thousand batches of juice, who wants an extra step?!

As the fruit steams, juice and sugar, if using will drip down into the middle section called the juice kettle. This can hold up to 4 quarts of juice before it needs to be drained. In about an hour, you can start draining juice into whatever container you're using. We set a bar stool next to the stove just below the hose. You can drain juice into a pot or right into the jars you're using.

It will take about 2 hours for one batch of fruit to go through the juicing process. Be sure to check for juice after about an hour, and don't wait too long to drain it, or it may overflow into the stockpot.

If you're crazy like us and plan to juice 10 or so batches of juice, be sure to allow each batch to completely finish the process, then discard the waste before adding more fruit. Also, you may feel tempted to stir or mash the fruit to expel the juice faster, but this isn't a good idea.

The finished juice is unsweetened and ready for anything. I freeze mine until I am ready to make jelly or something else later. It works great for making tomato juice. After the fruit is done and cooled, I give the leftovers to the chickens. You may be wondering about why I would want a steam juicer instead of a mechanical juicer.

It really depends upon what you need the juice for, how much produce you have to process and how much time you have. Yes — If you are going to drink the juice raw, you lose some of the health benefits with heat. The heat will destroy some of the vitamins and enzymes. So for the nutritional benefits of raw juice, a mechanical juicer is the way to go.

In that case, a steam juicer is easier and faster. The juice is very, very hot and you must be super careful when siphoning it off into jars. Wear oven mitts and watch for splatters. Or let it cool in the juicer a bit before removing it.

Do not be tempted to stir or press the fruit in the top tier. Doing so will drop all the pulp and skins into your juice.