Separating Tomato Pulp From Water

[Father'sDaughter]

Originally Posted by loulac

Father'sDaughter wrote :
I 'm one of the guys that wrote about it in Lets talk sauce! posts 106 and 141.
If you don't want to spend hours stirring the mix take some of the juice out !

Thank you! I knew it was somewhere deep in a thread, but couldn't find it by searching.

I see you say you only cook your pulp down for half an hour. How long do you allow it to sit and separate? I would have liked to leave it a bit longer than over night, but I only had a small window of time to get it cooked and canned. I'm going to try to let the next batch sit a bit longer to see if I can cut the cooking time down even more.

I also see now from that thread that some just keep the tomato water fresh/uncooked and use it as a juice. I confess to not having tasted it before cooking it down, but I will sample it with the next batch.

[loulac]

Father's Daughter wrote :

I also see now from that thread that some just keep the tomato water fresh/uncooked

It's a simple question of taste. I don't like fresh tomato juice but my wife does and drinks it just like orange juice. She drinks some when I process the tomatoes and I deepfreeze the quantity she is likely to drink off-season. Don't fill the jars completely, they would explode !
What is left goes to the compost heap. I really don't understand why some people boil the juice trying to concentrate it, I'm speaking of the juice, not the pulp!

How long do I wait till it separates ? If I could store 2 gallons in my fridge I would wait 24 hours but I can't. So I keep the mix a whole night in the coolest place in the house, then outside if nights are cooler. I wish I could wait a bit more but I'm afraid it might start fermenting.
I'm sure you'll find your personal technique and enjoy the work.

[kenny_j]

This will be my first year making and canning juice. I always have cooked down and canned as a puree, though never tried thinning with water to make it back into juice, wonder how that would taste? I normally stage tomatoes on a large rack of shelves in the kitchen, and as they attain perfect ripeness, cut and strip most seeds and gel (except those varieties with a sweet gel) and add to a 1 gallon ziplock in the freezer. When I get 5-6 gallon bags frozen I make a large batch of sauce/puree, re-freeze in plastic jars or can. One time I ladled water off the tops of kettles to reduce cooking time, and boiled that down separately. At the end it went in a large non-stick frying pan and with constant stirring reduced to a very thick paste. This had a very strong taste, sweet and sour at the same time. I put this in a freezer jar and into the freezer. It never froze!!! I used it for about a year, just a dab in different recipes to add flavor, made a great redeye gravy. Remember the seeds and gel were previously stripped, so it was less sour than without doing that.

kj

[ContainerTed]

Kenny J - I think that to add water back in would be hard unless you have easy access to demineralized water, such as that sold for use in steam irons. Tap water contains stuff that wasn't in those tomatoes when you picked them. I think a change of taste would be a high probability.

After I cut up the tomatoes into ~1" pieces, I use a Back-To-Basics Food Mill to strain out the seeds and pieces of the skins. Everything coming out of that operation goes into the pot. After bringing it to a boil, I reduce the heat to get a simmer that just barely rolls the liquid in the center of the pot. This allows water reduction without any sign of burning. I don't even get a thick layer of pulp on the bottom of my 12 quart pot.

Last night, I turned 17.5 quarts of raw juice into 12 quarts plus one pint of tomato juice. I kept a small amount of the original raw juice and compared it to the final result. Other than an easily noticeable difference in the thickness, I saw no change in the flavor. As posted above, the "clear-ish" juice contains a lot of great flavor. Flavor I want my juice.

It alls comes down to personal preference. I like thick juice for several reasons. One of those is that it really allows all of the flavors to come thru to me during those long winter months when I miss my heirlooms and can only find cardboard tasting commercial tomatoes to make my BLT's. You know, take a bite of the BLT and a sip of that wonderful tomato juice canned last summer. Yeah, I know it's pretending and ain't quite the same, but if you close your eyes just for a moment, ........

Well, now I have 28 quarts of "this summer" and still have more to come. AAAAHHHHHH!!!! Life is good.

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by ContainerTed

Kenny J - I think that to add water back in would be hard unless you have easy access to demineralized water, such as that sold for use in steam irons. Tap water contains stuff that wasn't in those tomatoes when you picked them. I think a change of taste would be a high probability.

After I cut up the tomatoes into ~1" pieces, I use a Back-To-Basics Food Mill to strain out the seeds and pieces of the skins. Everything coming out of that operation goes into the pot. After bringing it to a boil, I reduce the heat to get a simmer that just barely rolls the liquid in the center of the pot. This allows water reduction without any sign of burning. I don't even get a thick layer of pulp on the bottom of my 12 quart pot.

Last night, I turned 17.5 quarts of raw juice into 12 quarts plus one pint of tomato juice. I kept a small amount of the original raw juice and compared it to the final result. Other than an easily noticeable difference in the thickness, I saw no change in the flavor. As posted above, the "clear-ish" juice contains a lot of great flavor. Flavor I want my juice.

It alls comes down to personal preference. I like thick juice for several reasons. One of those is that it really allows all of the flavors to come thru to me during those long winter months when I miss my heirlooms and can only find cardboard tasting commercial tomatoes to make my BLT's. You know, take a bite of the BLT and a sip of that wonderful tomato juice canned last summer. Yeah, I know it's pretending and ain't quite the same, but if you close your eyes just for a moment, ........

Well, now I have 28 quarts of "this summer" and still have more to come. AAAAHHHHHH!!!! Life is good.

I'm going to have to try this. I'd love to make my own "V-8" juice but the first time I tried, it simply didn't taste the same. I like V-8 for mixing Bloody Mary'/Marias.

[ContainerTed]

Tracey, I tried to put together some homemade V8 juice, but just couldn't get the quantities of liquid from each item correct. Take for example the Beet Juice. Which kind of beet and how is that juice recovered/processed before it goes into the mix. There are a lot of recipes that can be had on line, but I haven't found one that details the individual components.

Try mixing some gin or vodka with a couple ounces of Margarita mix and then add the V-8 juice. With Vodka, I call it a "Moscow Maria". Cracked ice in a tall glass with a straw. It will take some peppery heat if you care to add some.

There are times when "Grandpa Teddy" needs a lot of "medicine".

[Lindalana]

I separate clear part and meaty one by bringing pot with fresh, slightly squished tomatoes to some heat and then letting it sit for an hour or two, gets separated really fast and I can it separated as veggie broth, it tastes wonderfully. Thick part gets into strainer and other things are done like sauce etc. I do not like to cook tomatoes for long time.

[madddawg]

I have found that by cutting the mators up the day before and putting them in a pan overnight, in the fridge, that a lot of the "water" will drain out. When I have more time I will read the rest of this thread because I can a a lot of tomatoes, salsa, paste, juice, and even ketchup.

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by ContainerTed

When I make my "juice", I use anything found on the kitchen counter where I place the harvest from the garden. It means that any tomato, whether red, yellow, orange, pink, black, brown, or GWR can be added to the mix. This gives me a really wide cross-section of the tomatoes coming from the garden. It becomes a supreme blend of all the varieties I have grown in any particular year. I keep telling myself that I can taste each one of them in the juices I make each year and enjoy all winter long.

So, when I started my last batch of juice, it had a green/unripe aroma to it and the taste was about the same. Naturally, I was concerned about it. I decided to go ahead and cook it down as I normally do. I put the canning salt in and told myself that if the "green" taste did not go away, I would try to do something with it like a spaghetti sauce or possibly a salsa.

To my surprise, after cooking it down about 15%, I again tasted it and was delighted that the green taste was gone. I can only think that the reason was the cooking. So, I added a bit of sweetner and finished the canning.

Last year, I made some of my "juice" so thick that you could make peaks on it with a fork. The DW liked it because she could make sauces without having to reduce the juice so much. I liked it because one part juice and two parts beer makes a very refreshing summer (or winter) drink.

I'm only guessing, but I am leaning strongly toward the heat of cooking being the key element that mellowed out the flavor. Perhaps one of our experts can help with why the heat would help everything taste better. I can honestly say that the change in taste is real and not just a product of the salt and sugar. It has to be something that is directly connected to the heat of cooking.

I've used cheap Roma tomatoes from the store ( I've found them for 30 cents a pound). I put my strained purée in a crockpot with red wine and spices. It cooks down to about 25% of the start volume and comes out very tasty. I like to cook it way down to use as a pizza sauce. I don't cook my pasta sauce quite that far.

[coronabarb]

Ted, I can't give you the "why" (that would be an Alton Brown question) but yes cooking does change flavor. Think if you put all the ingredients for chili in a pot and didn't cook it. And then how it tastes after an hour of cooking...or a few hours of cooking. Even the next day. And I've read that the lycopene is more available after cooking vs raw...so lots of chemistry stuff going on there.

[Worth1]

Just look at the below post.

Worth

[Worth1]

Missed a gear somewhere.
Can get the stupid link to work.