Questions about Canning Mulberry Juice

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phoebe

Assistant Cook
Joined
Apr 28, 2008
Messages
6
Hi all,
I'm a newbie at canning. I have some questions about Mulberry Juice. I previously canned 10 quarts, by cooking the mulberrys & straining them, then in a water bath canner for 15 min. I added 1 cup sugar to 1 gallon mulberry juice. I read this somewhere, I don't remember where. It's very tasty stuff & fine as far as that goes. But everytime I read a Mulberry jelly recipe it's says to add lemon juice.

So, I'm wondering is the stuff I canned already O.K. without the lemon juice? If I should add lemon juice, how much to a quart would I add? Any reason to add more sugar? It tastes good to me, but to be safe for canning purposes. To be on the safe side, should I boil it for 10 mins before I drink the stuff already canned? Read somewhere that would kill botulism.

Sorry for the million & one questions, I can find load of recipes for jams & jellies, but none so far on mulberry juice.

Thanks in advance for any advice!!
 
Okay, I'm a little confused. Were you making "juice" or "Jelly"?

The lemon juice is an optional addition to increase the acidity of the fruit to help in the preservation since some fruits are lower acidity than others. You would need to research Mulberry's to find out how acidic they are. It "could" affect the long-term storage of the jars, especially since you used very little sugar in your recipe.

If you were just making "juice", most generic recipes for fruit juices should work with the Mulberry Juice.

If you were attempting to make "jelly", I would like to know the recipe you were working from and what kind of pectin you used, if any.
 
No, I was just making juice. The closest thing I could find to Mulberry juice was a Berry Juice in the Ball Blue Book for Boysenberry, Loganberry, Raspberry, etc. That says add 1 to 2 cups of sugar for each gallon of juice.

The only reason I mentioned jelly was because those were the mulberry recipes I could find & they all mention lemon. So, that's why I was concerned about the acidity.

If I were to add lemon just to be safe how much would you advise adding per quart? I have a lot more to do & want to make sure that I get these right. Since, I just did those 2 days ago, I could reprocess them with lemon juice added, to be safe.

According to this site: fresh mulberries are very acidic List of Alkaline Foods - High Alkaline Food Diet

Sorry for so many questions, i just want to make sure everything is OK.
 
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What you did for juice is correct and there is no need to add lemon juice.

For jellies and jams it would be a little different. And, yes, I would check to find out the acidic level of Mulberries if you ever plan to do jellies or jams.

Jellies are what you can do with the liquid, but add lots more sugar and pectin for jelling. Of course there are pectins to reduce the amount of sugar required.

Jams and Preserves use the fruit itself.

Enjoy your canning experiences and don't forget to share with us as you progress along.
 
Whew, thanks for the quick response. I'm enjoying canning very much so far. Jelly will be my next venture.
 
See if you can find out what the PH of Mulberries are. If it is under 4.6, then you would be safe from botulism.

BTW, boiling for 10 minutes will destabilize the botulism toxin, if present, not kill the organism. The canning process is supposed to kill the spores of the organism, and if that fails, then boiling will take care of the toxin, which is a protein metabolized by the the organism which activates in canned foods (if present)

Whether you need to boil it or not depends on how comfortable you are with your canning process.

I think you will find that both the acid and the sugar in the juice should make the risk of botulism very very low.
 
Your canned juice should be just fine, phoebe. Mulberry juice is acidic (in the ph=3 range ... generally somewhere between 3.1 - 3.7). Apple juice, depending on variety of apple, has a pH range of 3.35 - 4.00, Grape juice has a pH in the same range as mulberrys - and the guidelines at the National Center for Home Food Preservation do not call for the addition of lemoin juice for canning either of these juices.

Making jelly is a little different. Depending on the recipe you may have to add additional acid (such as lemon juice) to interact with the pectin in order to get a jell instead of a syrup.
 
O.K. Thanks so much! The jelly recipes, I'm finding do indeed ask for lemon juice. That site is very helpful, thanks for the link.
 
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