Andrea Posted September 18, 2009 Share Posted September 18, 2009 Hi all, and especially Violet! It's looking like I'm going to have a HUGE crop of oranges this year and we don't do marmalade at our house. I've been researching canning orange juice or making orange juice concentrate for the freezer and haven't come up with anything that seems safe yet. The Ball book has a recipe for canned grapefruit juice but not orange. Any ideas why? I also found the following recipe and was wondering if it is safe: http://myspringhillgarden.com/?p=207 Canning Orange and Satsuma Juice My Spring Hill Garden By Stephen L. Stringham Orange and satsuma trees flourish in our planting zone along the gulf coast. A century ago, large orange groves were maintained here, but several hard freezes in the 1920’s and 1930’s damaged the orange trees, and the growers moved their orchards further south into middle and lower Florida. Because of the greater tolerance to cold weather, satsuma, a tangerine citrus tree, was grown in our cooler climate instead. Satsuma are often referred to as a mandarin orange because they were first imported from China, or from China via Japan. The original satsuma, or mandarin oranges, you have tasted from canned products, or as fresh tangerines. Over the years, the original satsuma has been modified in many new varieties to become very much like an orange. For example, in Baldwin County, Alabama, there are satsuma fruit that are indistinguishable from oranges in color, size, sweetness and flavor, and very tolerant of cold freezing weather. Additionally, agricultural universities have taken a hand at developing a better orange. LSU has developed an orange that grows well here, called, as you may have guessed, the LSU Orange. We have one growing in our yard. So, what to do with all of that juicy sweet juice! One might ask, why would you go to the trouble to bottle orange or satsuma juice? If your output were small, you would probably eat all of the satsuma or oranges that you produced before they could spoil. But if you had more produce than you could eat, or care to give away, canning the juice is a good option. The other reason for canning orange or satsuma juice is that there may be sometime when it would really taste good to have some on the shelf. There are several times when I wished I could have opened a bottle of orange juice and none was to be found, like after a hurricane when all of the fresh food was spent and we had been two or three weeks without water or power. Yes, we had bottled water, but oh, would a bottle of orange juice have tasted good then. Now, if you have just realized that you could have several satsuma or LSU orange trees growing in your yard, but didn’t, that’s okay, put it on your must purchase list this fall and plant some next February. In a few years, you’ll be ready to eat your own citrus and bottle your own juice. If you would just like to bottle your own orange juice to keep it on the shelf, you can purchase orange juice on sale and bottle it for long-term availability (up to three years) for your own home use without having a tree. To bottle orange or satsuma juice. Squeezing the juice by hand is a lot of work. The determined canner should do it once just so that she can say that she has done it. I have done that once to make juice just to see how long it would take. It takes too long. If you’re making orange or satsuma marmalade jam, hand squeezing the juice is not hard, because not much is needed. But to make enough to drink and can several quarts requires a food processor to move the process along. After extracting the juice, strain the juice to remove any small seeds or sectional fiber that would reduce the drinking quality of the product. Pulp is fine for me, but my wife likes the juice pulp free. Check with your clients (your children and spouse) for specifications. It seems we always must answer to a boss. Taste the juice. The processed orange or satsuma juice will taste just a little flatter, or less sweet, than it does eating the fruit fresh in sections, for some reason. Also cooking the juice to process it in the jars also slightly reduces its original sweetness. So experienced juice canners add up to one cup of sugar per gallon of juice before bottling it. It may not need this much sugar, but you get to be the taste tester to prepare the juice for bottling. The amount you use may vary from batch to batch. Heat the juice to almost boiling where steam is lightly rising. Pour into hot jars. Wipe the jar mouths clean with a wet cloth. Place warm lids and screw on rings. Process in a boiling water bath for five minutes for quart or pint jars to seal the lids. The finished, homemade mason-jar product, unlike the rather tart and acidic Valencia orange juice purchased in metal cans, is a sweet, pleasant orange juice, just like what you would purchase in the store fresh, except that it keeps for up to three years on your shelf. For recipes and gardening tips, visit our website at www.MySpringHillGarden.com. Copyright 2009 by Stephen L. Stringham. All rights reserved. – 30 - THANKS! Link to comment
Violet Posted September 18, 2009 Share Posted September 18, 2009 Yes, you are able to can orange juice. However, people tell me it tastes more like that old timey sort of orange juice drink we used to get in cartons. Still, not bad. Just not like fresh juice. Link to comment
Andrea Posted September 18, 2009 Author Share Posted September 18, 2009 Thanks for your quick response! I appreciate it. Link to comment
Andrea Posted September 18, 2009 Author Share Posted September 18, 2009 Has anyone experimented with making orange juice concentrate for the freezer? Link to comment
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