Wanted to get a feel for all of the juicers out there. I have a press and a centrifugal juicer, but would love to hear what you have. Give us the pros and cons and if you would buy it again.
Fruit press- Love it because it does large quantity, but I feel like it just doesn’t extract every drop out of it. Still a must have though.
Centrifugal (cheap)- It’s ok. It’s quick, but produces TONS of foam, and the screen is hard to clean. To me not worth keeping around and will be replaced.
I’ve been making grape juice for many years without using an actual juicing machine. First, I used a Foley Food Mill, then a similar French food mill, and up to this year a Victorio Food Strainer. These tools made a juice with lots of pulp, which is what I wanted, in order to make a healthier juice. This year, I wondered if I could make a juice that included the skins, as well as the pulp, for maximum nutrition. So, I tried blending whole cleaned seedless grapes before boiling the juice for 10 minutes and then canning it. I found that the raw grape skins did not chop up well enough, but boiled grapes were better. This resulted in a very tasty juice that was strong enough to water down with an equal part of water. Using mostly Himrod grapes (my most productive variety) this juice is sweet enough to not need any added sugar.
I also found that this method works well for making tomato puree, which is even easier because blending raw unpeeled tomatoes works well.
Using a blender instead of a strainer is much faster and provides a healthier product with no waste. A juicer will reduce the nutritional value of the juice even more than the strainers.
I like low tech myself. My neighbor processes most of my jams and uses one of these.
I use a cone strainer. Gravity and elbow grease powered.
Sometimes cheating a little here and there helps things… like freezing things to burst skins or druplets then warming them up then juicing.
For pure juice from caneberries, I have switched to using a mechanical fruit press like the first image, above.
I had to modify mine, as applying a turning motion to the assembly caused the whole assembly to turn. So I had to attach the juicer legs to a board, and clamp the board to the edge of a workbench surface.
The weak point in these juicers is the elbow where the frame goes from horizontal to vertical; I stop turning the crank even though more juice could be had, because of fear of the frame breaking from too much pressure.
For seedless purees, an augur-type motorized juicer is more efficient for caneberries and other soft fruits.
I’ve put some serious torque on mine. They are not as weak as you think. At least mine isn’t.
I press most apples but steam juice some. For tomatoes, grapes, blackberries and cherries, I prefer the steam juicer.
,I think my unit frame is all aluminum, so I am cautious rather than milk the last 10% of juice.
Another vote for steam juicing if you are going to cook the product anyway. I have three similar to this one:
How long does it take to steam out a batch?
