so i bought a ratcheting #25 five gallon basket press.
i was intending to use it to make cider but thought i could also put it to other uses around the bar.
the main bar problem i’ve been wanting to find a solution to is creating large volumes of clear pineapple juices to offer at brunch instead of orange juice. the fresh, tart juice can be incredibly refreshing.
so i bought eight pineapples for a dollar a piece at hay market. i peeled the skins in about a minute and tossed them into the press after a simple dicing.
the press has a ratcheting mechanism so you don’t need to be able to move around it 360 degrees for use . you can easily put it on a bench top but i do recommend bolting it down. i was lucking that i could drill bolt holes into my bench top otherwise you could mount it on some plywood then clamp that to the bench top.
pineapples are loaded with juice so eight yielded an entire gallon of really clear juice in just of a few productive minutes with the ratchet.
reloading the press is pretty easy. ratchet backward, take off the ratchet lever, then unscrew to the top with a 360 degree motion using your hands. you can then simply release the slats and pull off the press cake. you could make 5 gallons of juice in about a half hour. cleaning to be honest is a bitch. you need to loosen the bolts on every slat to get all the fibrous junk in between but with the right socket it really just take five minutes.
pressing is a really good option for pineapples because any griding whips huge amounts of air into the juice and they get really frothy. also no affordable centrifuging juicers can put out the same volumes as the press.
now that brunch is over and you didn’t quite sell all the juice you can give the rest the “ice wine” treatment to make a decadent (but not obnoxiously decadent) syrup. freeze concentrate only 50% of your juice to increase its extract and marry it back to the rest then use your refractometer to hit 40 brix.
the resulting syrup is a killer foil for lime juice
1.5 oz. gin
.5 oz. kirshwasser
1 oz. lime juice
1 oz. “ice wine” pineapple syrup
2 dashes angostura bitters
my next project is to press apples and concentrate the juice into a syrup i can fortifying with laird’s apple brandy to make “feux pommeau”
I know that pineapple juice will froth pretty easily, but is the froth stable enough to remain after a resting period? I’ve been wanting to try a clarification using the tomato water method: puree fruit, filter through chinois or superbag, adjust sweetness/acidity. Any experience with that?
Comment by dave — December 27, 2009 @ 2:42 pm
the froth isn’t too stable but aerating does get the ball rolling on oxidation. i used to use the tomato water method and didn’t have much success. when you grind up the fruit a lot of pulp can go through your strainer. its even hard to find the space to do it in. pressing the fruit seems to keep the pulp together in the press cake and you really just end up with “fruit water” instantly.
Comment by sjs — December 28, 2009 @ 5:58 pm