Whole Fruit, Mashed/Chopped Fruit, or juice

If I have a quality juicer that extracts a high percentage of juice, i.e. light dry pulp, is there any reason to not extract juice from fruit rather than use whole fruit?

I plan on making a variety of berry, berry blend, or other fruit mead this month and I have a fair bit of fresh picked fruit in the freezer waiting. I am thinking that juicing the fruit, where applicable, makes things easier. Less mess dealing with while whole fruit in the fermeter or in bags. Would probably clear quicker as well.

Is there any advantage to having the whole fruit and its flesh/pulp in the must for fermentation?

Well, the fruit skins will add some tannins, which could be desirable - like in a red wine. I also wonder if there are other (non-tannin) flavors extracted from the skins...and/or if slower extraction from the whole fruit is better. Must be some info out there somewhere...I'm just speculating.

I'm a fan of the whole fruit. You get body, some tannins, and just a deeper flavor from using the whole fruit. I rack off the fruit once it's spent.

Good points. I just though there might actually be more extraction from the fruit itself and less wort absorbed or "stuck" in the fruit itself when you rack off of it. This may call for a side by side batch experiment.

MidTNJasonF said:

Good points. I just though there might actually be more extraction from the fruit itself and less wort absorbed or "stuck" in the fruit itself when you rack off of it. This may call for a side by side batch experiment.

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Yes, you very well may get greater juice extraction this way.

But think of when you eat an apple vs. drinking apple juice. Sure, they taste very much similar, but they aren't the same. Or having a glass of tomato juice vs. eating a tomato. There are differences, and nuances that come through with the whole fruit. I think there is a complexity to a wine using the whole fruit.

As an example, I make tons of chokecherry wine. A friend got a steam extractor, and wanted to try his juice in a wine. I made a 3 gallon batch if his juice, vs a 3 gallon batch of mine. His was still pretty good, and he loved it. But it was much lighter colored (no skins to ferment on, I assume) and not as complex tasting. I noticed quite a bit of difference.

Try it both ways, and see which you prefer! You may like the juice version just fine and decide it's worth it to save some time and effort.

If you try whole or chopped fruit freeze it first. It will give up a lot more juice.

How about you use the juicer for maximum juice extraction. Then, take the pulp and put it in a very fine mesh bag and add it to the primary. That would be the best of both worlds!

Vikings said:

How about you use the juicer for maximum juice extraction. Then, take the pulp and put it in a very fine mesh bag and add it to the primary. That would be the best of both worlds!

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Stone fruit can have pits/stones removed before freezing, seed fruit can't but a lot of juice extractors (machine type ones) can damage the seeds which can impart some bitterness, which isn't noticed in the juice.

Additionally, the tannins and often more importantly, the pigmentation is mostly on the skins (some fruit..... think citrus.....also has a lot of tbe aromatics in the skin too).

Hence it seems best practice is to remove stone/pip where possible, then either freeze/thaw or lightly crush (think grapes) , then ferment on the fruit.

Flesh and pip debris can be racked away and skins of any consequence can be pressed.

Just my tuppence worth......