Home › Canning and Preserving › Other Fruit Juices
Other Fruit Juices
Raspberry, blackberry and strawberry juice may be made by following the recipe for grape juice but doubling the quantity of sugar. For currant juice use four times as much sugar as for grape juice.
This is a variation note rather than a standalone recipe: everything depends on the grape juice method it points back to, which means the only real content here is the sugar ratio. A few things are worth knowing before you scale it.
- The missing base recipeA common method of the period was to crush the fruit, heat it gently with a little water until the juice runs freely, strain through a jelly bag, sweeten, reheat, and fill sterilized bottles or jars to seal; the grape juice entry on this book's own terms may differ. Because the sugar quantity in the grape recipe is not repeated here, "double" and "four times" are genuinely unquantified on this page — find the grape juice entry before you start.
- Why currants take four times the sugarRed and white currants are both very acidic and high in pectin, so their juice tastes harsh and thin without heavy sweetening. The recipe treats raspberry, blackberry and strawberry alike, at double the grape quantity.
- Do not boil the juiceBerry juice loses its fresh aroma and takes on a cooked, jammy flavor above a simmer. Heat only to about 190F for filling, and hold it there rather than letting it reach a rolling boil.
- Strain twice, slowlySqueezing the jelly bag forces pulp and fine sediment through and gives a cloudy bottle. Let it drip, then strain the collected juice a second time through a clean cloth if you want it clear.
- Sealing and storageHigh-acid fruit juice is not a botulism risk, but yeasts and molds will spoil an imperfect seal. Use current tested water-bath processing times for fruit juice, and store the bottles in the dark — strawberry and raspberry juice can fade and brown on exposure to light.
- Strawberry is the weak linkStrawberries give up little juice for their bulk and the result is pale and flat. A tablespoon of lemon juice per quart sharpens it.
- YieldYields vary with fruit and method, and are lower for strawberries than for raspberries and blackberries. Sweetened juice of this kind was generally intended to be diluted with water or soda at the table rather than drunk straight.
Bottled fruit juice belongs to a specific moment in American household cookery: pasteurization had become well understood by the early twentieth century, home canning was being taught as a domestic science subject, and the temperance movement had created steady demand for unfermented fruit drinks to stand in for wine at table and at communion. Grape juice was the flagship of that movement, and it may be that this is why it gets the full recipe here, with the berries and currants relegated to a cross-reference. The heavy sugar for currants is a reminder that these were concentrates or cordials rather than juices in the modern sense.