The best Fruit Cooking books: Reddit reviews

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I'm a newbie also. I've started out with apple juice. I just bought a bunch from costco and went from there. It might be a bit easier as it's pasteurized from the factory and you don't have to deal with microbes and the such that would be on the skin of apples.

If you go with apple juice, make sure that it's only preservatives is vitamin c.

Also a good place to read up is this book. I read it first before making my first cider.

https://www.amazon.ca/New-Cider-Makers-Handbook-Comprehensive/dp/1603584730

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I too am new, but I found ATK's Fullproof Preserving book, the recipes are small which makes them great for discovering something new.

https://www.amazon.com/Foolproof-Preserving-Jellies-Pickles-Condiments/dp/1940352517

This is a great little handbook full of simple one page recipes. Simple but not boring.

Fermentation: River Cottage Handbook No.18 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1408873540/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_navT_a_3HT1C109STFF5CA3XSQS

100% money back guarantee if you don't like this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Oranges-John-McPhee/dp/0374512973/ref=sr_1_1?crid=XXH8VA89BQAB&dchild=1&keywords=oranges+john+mcphee&qid=1634553882&s=books&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/Tomatoland-Industrial-Agriculture-Destroyed-Alluring/dp/1449423450/ref=nodl_

You can read about cases of migrant workers getting literally enslaved in Florida. The book shows how bad the job is

Keep experimenting. I found that fermenting several mini-batches with something different about each one helps with finding certain desirable characteristics in a cider.

I also write detailed notes about my process and observations. For example, I'll note the starting gravity and final gravity, temperature, yeast, nutrient schedule, precise weight/volume of ingredients, tasting notes, dates and times, etc. If you want to get technical, you can start measuring acidity, and make adjustments.

To improve fruit cider, finding the proper fruit-to-cider ratio is important. If you're using fruit juice, then using a graduated cylinder, which are available at most homebrew shops, helps with determining blending ratios.

Also, choosing to allow the added fruit to ferment or not will make a significant difference in the final outcome. For example, fermenting blueberries can create a geranium character (geraniol) in the cider, whereas adding the fruit after the base apple cider has fermented and preventing the blueberry from fermenting will preserve the natural blueberry flavor.

Nutrient additions can be helpful depending on the yeast and starting gravity of the cider.

To improve 100% apple cider, apple selection is important, if you have access to cider apples and press them. Here again, finding the proper ratio of apples to use is important in improving the cider.

Others have mentioned important things too like yeast selection, fermentation temperature, aging, tannins, etc. Those are all great suggestions.

I think a great resource for improving cider is a good book. I would recommend Claude Jolicoeur's The New Cider Maker's Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers

https://www.amazon.com/New-Cider-Makers-Handbook-Comprehensive/dp/1603584730

I’m in 8b (PNW) so pollination times will be slightly different for you, but there is excellent information on different varieties here:

https://cider.wsu.edu/ciderweb/#l-r

And as far as making the cider and perfecting your blend, I’d look to this book. I have every book I can find in cidermaking and this one is hands down the most comprehensive.

The New Cider Maker's Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1603584730/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabt1_slRUFbEDF0SQ7

I highly recommend this book:

The New Cider Maker's Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1603584730/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_RVzLFbKTE573Z

He goes into great detail about natural cidermaking- timelines, testing, residual sweetness, natural carbonation. It’s all covered in this book.

It sounds like you may be overthinking it for your first go. Instead of experimenting with spices, start by experimenting with yeasts. Split your batch into smaller amounts and try pitching a few kinds of yeast. Wine, ale, saison, kviek, Brett, and lambic blends have all been used successfully. If the juice is (super) fresh and unpasteurized maybe even try a natural fermentation. You will be amazed by how much the yeast will effect the cider.

Also experiment with the sugar source you use. I prefer honey but I again suggest splitting your batch and running different sugars with the same yeast.

Sweet and sparkling is a tall order for your first cider. Personally I use a keg to achieve it. It’s pretty hard to do in bottles.

Check out this book, he talks in detail about how to achieve a sweet and sparkling traditional cider in a bottle.

The New Cider Maker's Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1603584730/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_WqBIFb7Q744AS

I have every book I can find about making cider and this one is the most complete:

The New Cider Maker's Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1603584730/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fab_pBZDFb0PDGXJK

Concentration loses the flavor of the orange juice -- it is basically a sweet-and-sour solution after that. So after boiling down the orange juice most places then re-add a flavor pack in the form of ground-up peel (!), which restores some of the flavor. That is why grapefruit juice from concentrate is so amazingly bitter compared to fresh grapefruit juice: grapefruit peels are very bitter compared to orange peels. The "fresh" stuff doesn't use the peel in being reconstituted, so it stays mild.

Frozen concentrated orange juice is a fairly generic commodity and brands distinguish themselves with the "flavor pack" they add later. If you're interested you can read John McPhee's awesome book Oranges -- which is somewhat dated now but still a page-turner (120 pages on everything to do with citrus, and it's impossible to put down).

I have this book and can recommend it: https://www.amazon.com/Food-Jars-Preserving-Batches-Year-Round/dp/0762441437/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=small+batch+canning&qid=1595436980&sr=8-5

But if you go over to amazon and search "small batch canning" there are others.

I'm using Wyeast 4766 and its chugging away at 45F. Not sure about Lalvin 1118 but a lot of the books I've read use this yeast without any problems at temps between 45-50. Good call on the temp though, I had some problems doing a cider with Saison yeast without doing my homework and not realizing it did better at warmer temps.

I think your set up will work just fine if you just make sure the temp doesn't go above 50F. Check out this book for a great reference The New Cider Maker's Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers https://www.amazon.com/dp/1603584730/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_3Td.xbMAE80TZ

It's very technical but will tell you everything you need to know. Also books by Lea are great.

cider season is almost upon us in the states. You could wait for cider mills to start doing their runs, and if you're lucky enough you might have a quality producer in the area with the right kind of apples you want.

This book has a lot of good references and information to help you decide which apple varieties to go for.

Late season varietals that harvest into september/october are typically going to be the highest sugar/acid apples you can get, which imo is what you want for making a cyser.

I have this: https://www.amazon.ca/New-Cider-Makers-Handbook-Comprehensive/dp/1603584730 And this: https://www.amazon.ca/Craft-Cider-Making-Andrew-Lea/dp/1904871984

The basic keys to avoid bad batches (I found out by making bad batches) are: - Avoid contamination... get sulphite into it asap, keep everything hospital-clean. -Keep primary fermentation temps low, like 12-15 deg. celcius

I didn't use any splenda, so mine is very dry, pretty tart... but no vinegar or off-flavors....

Honestly, I didn't even check the spec. gravity when I racked... But I think cleanliness and temps are way more important than most other factors.

I came here to recommend the same book! Here's a link to it on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Cider-Makers-Handbook-Comprehensive/dp/1603584730/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1P8SN20X1P4XJRWMP1SD

Any time you're storing anything in a can you're preserving it and it needs to meet proper acidity, regardless of how long you plan on keep it on your shelf. Source is from Food in Jars, a cookbook I have at home.

I'm just saying I think the video is quaint, cute, but doesn't serve as a proper guide for storing tomato sauce.

If you've never read Oranges by John McPhee he dives deeply into orange juice, orange groves, orange cleaners. If it has anything to do with oranges, McPhee had it.

One tidbit I still recall decades later is he's walking in a grove with a grower and the grower tells him if he wants the best orange, pick from the south side of the tree whereupon he reaches up and plucks a south facing orange. The grower goes on to say that the best part is the part facing the sun, slices the orange in half, discards the northern half of the orange and gives McPhee the southern hemisphere of the orange.

For awhile thereafter, I searched for oranges marketed as "south facing oranges" with no luck.

THIS BOOK will answer all your questions, but in a nutshell: Your juice, despite saying "FLORIDA" on the box, probably isn't all coming from US. Flavor packs, water and other manipulation: you aren't really drinking just orange juice.

I haven't had to convince anyone to become vegan before, but I do know some information you can use. The 80/10/10 Diet is a great book that approaches veganism in a very logical way. This is the book that tipped me over the edge and made me become vegan. It basically talks about how plant based is the optimal diet for humans. There is a lot about nutrients, benefits of the removal of animal products in the diet, and how your body is made to consume plant foods. It appeals very much to the biological/medical side of veganism.

I just started raw myself a few months ago. There are two basic routes you can pursue: high fat or low fat. If you go high fat, you'll eat a lot of raw nuts and avocados, plus fruits and veggies. If you go low fat, you'll eat a LOT of fruit. Bananas are the cheapest.

Whichever route you choose, you may find benefit in using a site/app to track your macronutrient calories; I use cronometer.com but there are many others. It is really easy to under-eat when you're going raw, especially the high-carb route.

I'm on high carb, aiming for 2000-2800 calories a day. It's been quite a struggle to get even 2000 most days; I often am around 1600. The macronutrient ratio I'm aiming for is 80/10/10 (carb, fat, protein).

An average day's consumption might be:

• Breakfast: a liter of fresh-squeezed orange juice, then a banana or two after. (A lot of raw fooders are into food combining, which mostly means only eat fruit on an empty stomach, and don't eat anything else until the fruit has transited out of your stomach - 15-30 mins is what I aim for).

• Lunch: smoothie with 5 bananas + 100g of greens

• Dinner: As much fruit as I can eat (usually about 300g) of whatever I have available (grapes, melons, mangos, nectarines), followed by half an avocado, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives (not sure if these are raw?), salad, then some cashews or pistachios to inch my calories up if necessary.

Many high carb raw people say you need more like 3000+ calories. I am working my way toward trying that but I've found it difficult. They say at the beginning it's best to let yourself move gradually toward that as the volume of fruit you need to eat is huge. Cooked and high fat foods are much more calorically dense.

Read "Squeezed". That'll cure you of the cravings.

This is where we would discuss/debate human physiology and protein requirements. However, from an ideological, "cut things out", perspective, cutting out meat from a Paleo diet would probably leave you with fruit, unless you want to live off of nuts (essentially pure fat), and/or vegetables (too few calories). Of course, you can incoporate all of these, but you will be getting mostly calories from fruit. For more info, I recommend reading 80/10/10

Thanks. I more or less follow the guidelines in the book The 80-10-10 Diet, although I occasionally eat meals that are higher in fat. I also have had mild IBS type symptoms and eating all that soluble fiber from fruit has helped me (has to do with providing an optimal environment for the good gut bacteria). I know of other people who eat this way who previously had IBS or other GI issues and were helped a lot. One girl in particular had Crohn's so bad she looked severely anorexic but now is at a healthy weight. In California you should have access to high quality fruit too and you need good fruit to be successful at this diet. Also watch this video for some inspiration, there are a lot of hotties on this diet! There are other resources out there, but start by reading the book. For me, the transition took several years, but it is so worth it...

In my experience, you can't go wrong starting out with Blue Ribbon Preserves. Great introduction to the theory behind canning, and has a ton of great recipes.

What you buy in the store as "orange juice" probably isn't exactly what you think it is... so it can't really be compared to fresh squeezed.

http://www.amazon.com/Squeezed-About-Orange-Agrarian-Studies/dp/0300124716

"even “not from concentrate” orange juice is heated, stripped of flavor, stored for up to a year, and then reflavored before it is packaged and sold."

Read The 80/10/10 Diet by Dr. Douglas Graham. It's the simplest and best. The basic premise is get all the carbohydrates you desire from simple sugars from fruit, then eat very little protein and fat (veggies, nuts, seeds)

Oy. You have much to learn.

Here is an entire book on the concept. You can get the general gist of it from reading the summary and reviews, and there are a billion other articles out there on Google if you want to read about it.

Pasteurized juice is about as healthy for you as soda.

No you don't need to eat meat. Check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjZ_yRWabuc

If you want optimal athletic performance, check out this book http://www.amazon.com/80-10-Diet/dp/1893831248

I stopped drinking OJ after reading this. All other fruit juices went out the window too.

I can imagine that paleo man didn't have bags of mandarins laying around, or cartons of huge blueberries. But I'm quite sure they didn't say no to fruit when it came out. Frankly, I doubt they said no to anything that grew naturally: fruit, veg, animal. (In my admittedly uneducated opinion on the subject). Of the things we put in our bodies, it is domesticated grains that are the the most recent to our diet, correct (other than chemicals/preservatives)?