I'm steam juicing this year's grape excess.
Steam juicing is awesome! You get sterilised juice and can use old or damaged fruit that would otherwise end up being fed to the chooks. One year, I even used a heap of grapes from Joe's Connected Garden that became mouldy due to unseasonable summer rain.
Don't worry in this case though folks, the chooks get their share of grapes too!
It's not just for grapes though, any fruit can be steam juiced. The steam bursts open cell walls, allowing the good stuff out to accumulate in the catchment area of the juicer. It's an easy way to stock up on clean juices for later in the year or making vinegar.
The juicer comes in 4 parts, a bottom water reservoir, a top basket with a lid and most importantly, the middle catchment area with a tsp. Steam moves from bottom to the top, burst the cells of the fruit and drips down into the catcher where you tap it off into a bottle.
Someone's going to ask about essential oils and hydrosols....and the answer is no, it doesn't get good results..
Some of you may have seen that I've been writing a series of posts about herbs and making herbal remedies at home. I want to share what I know of this topic so that, as the world gets crazier, folks will have other avenues of medical care, namely those of themselves and their community. If you look back over this blog, you can see heaps of info on the topic, plus loads and loads of posts on herbs and using Australian bushfoods from a white perspective. If you haven't been around on in the @hivegarden and @naturalmedicine communities for long, you may be interested in looking back. There's w-a-a-a-a-y too much there for me to repost and the Hive system doesn't let you vote on old posts so, if you're happy with what you find, I believe that there is now a tip option...
