What is Reddit's opinion of OXO Good Grips Food Mill?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

By popularity on Reddit, this product is:

19 reviews of this product found across Reddit:

I’ve considered using a food mill or China hat like the other poster mentioned, but honestly I just batch it in the vitamix until there are no solids left.

I never do batches bigger than 1 gallon though.

Honestly, for the maximum yield, I would use a food mill. This way I wouldn't worry about having to remove seeds or skin before roasting.

Straining in a conventional way (with a strainer) won't get you as much as you would get by using a food mill. So it will be a bit more liquidy, than straining.

The issue is that roasting for too long will greatly reduce the water content of the tomatoes, leading to a thicker juice.

Mash with whatever you have laying around that will do the trick...then follow up with any or all of these: run it thru a chinois/sieve; moosh it up more with a mortar and pestle; use a food mill. If you take the hulls off the chick peas after they cook/soak/or you take them out of the can (some canned ones already have had them removed) it will come out a whole lot smoother. I'd go with a food mill if it were up to me. Here's an example, there are many variations
https://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-Food-1071478/dp/B000I0MGKE

I have an OXO food mill that I have used for years. It comes with 3 discs. The fine disc works great for what you want to do.

First time I’ve had a ton of tomatoes so I ended up buying a food mill. For around $50 I’ve had no complaints with oxo brand. I used it for tomatoes, plums, potatoes and berries so far.

oxo food mill

I use this food mill. On the pricey side but makes very short work of straining sauces. Also great for mashed potatoes, tomato sauce etc. don’t bother with the cheaper ones on Amazon, those leave metal shavings in your food! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I0MGKE/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=jamesgu208-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B000I0MGKE&linkId=7a1dee230681de6257e81b9356ff4403

I recommend adding a food mill before going for a different blender. I too like saving the pulp/mash to dry for grind for powders.

This is the one I bought.

You don't have to peel tomatoes, you can run them through the food mill.

But of late, for sauce at least, I don't even do that. I just blend them and keep all the good vitamins and such that is in the skin as well.

It's called a food mill. We use something like this, but admittedly, we cook our tomotoes very differently than this guy. For one, we often roast the tomatoes in the oven, sprinkled with EVOO, salt and pepper. Then run them through the mill. Sometimes, we boil the maters for 60 seconds to help remove the skin. Then we skin them, add the tom's to onion, carrot, celery, and garlic. After 4 hours of cooking, I run the immersion blender through the tomotoes, then reduce the marinara to proper thickness. Made over 10 gallons of sauce this August!

Also, a side note for future trips... You can really dehydrate damn near anything. I dehydrate spaghetti sauce, throw the sauce roll ups (yeah, it's the same consistency of a fruit roll up) into vacuum seal bags. When it's time to make it, I just toss it in the pot and let it reconstitute. It ain't mom's, but it'll do. If you have a food mill then you can make a puree out of all kinds of stuff that easily dehydrates into a skin that packs light. This is all stuff for people who spend WAY too much time living out of a pack, and much of it was learned from BSing with other hikers. Also, for note, there are other food mills on the market that are cheaper, that's just the one that I inherited when Grandma died.

OXO Good Grips Good Grips Food Mill https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B000I0MGKE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_P9VY20JW865SG302D5HF

This one is great.

What you need is a food mill. Something like this:

OXO Good Grips Food Mill https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000I0MGKE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_T0FEQXP8GXE4CK2MC7SY

I like this one because it has these "legs" to fit over bigger bowls and pots, https://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-Food-1071478/dp/B000I0MGKE

I made preserves with mine from last year. I used a food mill to get rid of the stems, but you could probably just put it through a sieve if you don't have one (or just blend them).

Here's the recipe. I based it on the Ball pectin calculator web app, using peach as my surrogate since they don't have an entry for prickly pear. I've since confirmed that it has more lemon juice by volume than a comparable Prickly Pear jelly recipe, so I'm pretty sure it's safe.

De-glochid the fruit. I did this by scraping them off with a paring knife, kind of like shaving with a straight razor. I used a heavy-duty rubber glove to protect my left hand, which held the fruit, and ran the fruit under a dribbling tap as I scraped the glochids. A few years ago I tried the flame method (with my gas stove) but I found it left a bad taste on the fruit. This method with the knife takes a while but it did a good job of it. It works best if your fruit is fully ripe.
Peel the fruit. I tried to preserve as much of the outer pulp as possible, but the easiest way to peel it is to pull away the outer pulp entirely and toss it. My way takes a lot longer but you preserve a lot of useful pulp for the jam.
Run the fruit through a food mill. You can theoretically do this with a sieve, but you'll miss out on a lot of the pulp. We're making jam here; it's all about the pulp. I recommend this one, on which I used the medium grate: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I0MGKE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Ingredients:
1. 4C (946ml) fruit pulp (I had around 18C of pulp, so I ended up doing four batches -- never double recipes with pectin, because they won't heat fast enough and could fail to gel).
2. 92g powdered pectin (this is how much the Ball calculator told me to use, but it came out very firm. In later batches I reduced it to as low as 65g and it's still so firm it doesn't perceptibly deform when I tip the sealed jar to the side. Next time I make this recipe I'll probably use around 50g of pectin.)
3. 43ml bottled lemon juice
4. 1273g sugar
Mix the pulp with the lemon juice and pectin. Make sure it's all mixed in thoroughly.
Heat it to a rolling boil that you can't stir down.
Add the sugar. Mix it in thoroughly.
Bring it back to a rolling boil. Allow to boil for one minute.
Skim the foam, ladle into prepared jars, and process for 10 minutes (half-pint) or 15 minutes (pint).

To those requesting a recipe: I don't have one that's tested safe. I based my recipe on the Ball pectin calculator web app, using peach as my surrogate since they don't have an entry for prickly pear. I'm not overly concerned about the safety, since it was plenty liquid while hot, so the water bath canning should have worked out well. Here's the basic recipe I followed:

De-glochid the fruit. I did this by scraping them off with a paring knife, kind of like shaving with a straight rasor. I used a heavy-duty rubber glove to protect my left hand, which held the fruit, and ran the fruit under a dribbling tap as I scraped to wash away the prickles. I tried the flame method (with my gas stove) a few years ago for making jelly but I found it left a bad taste on the fruit. This method with the knife takes a while but it did a good job of it.
Peel the fruit. I tried to preserve as much of the outer pulp as possible, but the easiest way to do this is just peel away the outer pulp entirely and toss it. My way takes a lot longer but you preserve a lot of useful pulp for the jam.
92g pectin (this is how much the Ball calculator told me to use, but it came out very firm. In later batches, I reduced it to as low as 65g and it's still so firm it doesn't deform when I tip the sealed jar to the side)eful pulp for the jam.p as I scraped to wash away the prickles. I tried the flame method (with my gas stove) a few years ago for making jelly but I found it left a bad taste on the fruit. This method with the knife takes a while but it did a good job of it.
Run them through a food mill. You can theoretically do this with a sieve, but you'll miss out on a lot of the pulp. We're making jam here; it's all about the pulp. I recommend this one, on which I used the medium grate: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I0MGKE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Ingredients:
1. 4C (946ml) fruit pulp (I had around 18C of pulp, so I ended up doing four batches -- never double recipes with pectin, because they won't heat fast enough and could fail to gel).
2. 92g pectin (this is how much the Ball calculator told me to use, but it came out very firm. In later batches I reduced it to as low as 65g and it's still so firm it doesn't deform when I tip the sealed jar to the side)
3. 43ml bottled lemon juice
4. 1273g sugar
Mix the pulp with the lemon juice and pectin. Make sure it's all mixed in thoroughly.
Heat it to a rolling boil that you can't stir down.
Add the sugar. Mix it in thoroughly.
Bring it back to a rolling boil. Allow to boil for one minute.
Skim the foam, ladle into prepared jars, and process for 10 minutes (half-pint) or 15 minutes (pint).

I'll reiterate, this isn't a tested/safe recipe. Use at your own risk. I would guess that it's not dangerous, but I can't make any guarantees.

>I think if you want to start from a whole pomegranate you need a good way to cold-extract the juice.

I think a couple of minutes with a food mill would take care of juicing the arils, no problem. It's the process of extricating the arils undamaged from the fruit that stops me, especially when you're looking at disassembling 3 to 5 whole fruits per cup of juice.

There's an episode in season 10 of Good Eats that's all about pomegranates, and he makes getting the arils out look easy, but for some reason I'm skeptical. FWIW, he also demonstrates a couple of alternative methods of juice extraction:

1) Squeeze halved pomegranates in a countertop citrus press. Obviously, no disassembly of the fruit required.

2) Pulse the arils in a blender a few times, just until they're all broken up, then strain the solids out with a fine mesh strainer, pressing the solids with the back of a spoon to extract all of the juice.

I might try #1, but I think a food mill would be far superior to method #2.

here you go.

Call me old fashioned, but I use a food mill for basically everything. Thirty five bucks for a great one, and I can make perfect pumpkin puree, soups, sauces, etc. I adore the thing.