Q: Does anyone have ideas for making homemade juice concentrates? It's the end of summer and there is all this perfectly ripe fruit. I'm thinking of putting everything through my juicer and freezing it. Any other suggestions?
Sent by Thomas
Editor: If you have the freezer space, I think juicing the fruit now and freezing it is a great idea.
Readers, have any of you done this? Any ideas?
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Martha Concrete Lam...

In Sweden there is a tradition of making saft, a juice concentrate that you cut with water (still or sparkling) - IKEA sells several flavors. I made blueberry saft this summer by bringing 2 cups of crushed blueberries to boil with 4 cups of water (I added a little dried lavender as well, and you could add other flavorings if you like). I let it boil for about 10 minutes, then let it strain through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl. After that you bring the juice back to a boil with 1 cup sugar (or to taste) and 1 tsp citric acid, and cooked it until the sugar was dissolved (you can boil it longer if you want a thicker syrup). Then I canned it for 10 minutes in pint jars. This is not a recipe tested by any official experts, and different fruits have different acidity levels, so it might be safer to freeze this instead of canning, or do some other research on the sugar and acid levels first. But I imagine it could also be fun and delicious to make a pear or peach syrup concentrate or cranberry concentrate in a similar way. And you can flavor them however you like!
Great idea - though I suppose you could just cut up the fruit and freeze it if you had space. Then take some out of the freezer before bed for the next day's juices. I also just blend my smoothie ingredients (banana, berries) frozen, since they are cut up small it works wonderfully.
Here are some recipes for cordials from fresh fruit: http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2007/09/fruit-cordial-recipes.html
I think freezing the juice is a great idea and would probably take up less space than just freezing the fruit. Maybe pour the juice into ice cube trays and use it frozen in smoothies? And what about a quick and easy freezer jam? Chop small or mash up your fruit, then measure 4 cups into a large frying pan (you need a wide pan to get the proper evaporation so it will thicken) and add 2 tablespoons lemon juice and some sugar (I usually use about 1 cup except for super sour or sweet fruits). Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, stirring, for 5-10 minutes until it is slightly thickened; there's no pectin in it, except for what's in the fruit and lemon juice, so it won't thicken that much. Then cool and freeze in jars--delicious! And try combinations of fruit--peach and blueberry is a great one.