Pomegranate and mango liqueur making help?

[jrshaul]

I'm an amateur liqueur enthusiast, and have started to get pretty good at brewing them. I've managed a pretty good coffee, cranberry, blueberry, and cinnamon liqueur, and have slowly been getting better at dealing with citrus - but I just can't seem to make mango work.

Every time I make the stuff, it goes all brown and horrible. I've tried adding ascorbic acid, but to no avail - the color stays okay, but it still smells like bile. Campden tablets don't help, either. I'm using mason jars, so the air seal should be pretty good - is there something else I'm forgetting? Or maybe just the air trapped in the jars is causing the problem?

Also, has anyone done anything with pomegranate? Trader Joe's has frozen pomegranate pips better than a lot of the fresh stuff (I'm in midwestern USA), and I'm hoping to make a liqueur. My standard approach of liquefying the fruit and mixing with alcohol might not be so useful here - the seeds are very bitter - and the recommended option of a mechanical push-down citrus juicer isn't available. Maybe a mallet and a ziploc bag?

[Shalmanese]

You can extract Pomegranate juice from seeds by quickly pulsing in the blender and then straining through a sieve. Very high yield and low bitterness.

[jrshaul]

You can extract Pomegranate juice from seeds by quickly pulsing in the blender and then straining through a sieve. Very high yield and low bitterness.

Interesting. My blender is something of an all-or-nothing affair (it was made back when Japanese cars were unreliable and people thought tiki bars were a good idea), so I'm not quite so sure this approach will work. Has anyone else tried it?

[Chris Hennes]

I have not tried the "quick pulse" method, only the "blend to hell" method, which doesn't work well at all. So if your blender is only going to give you a BtH option, I'd suggest an alternate route. I like your idea of taking the seeds and mechanically crushing them somehow, either with a mallet or maybe a rolling pin (in a bag of course). I vote you give it a go and report back .

[jrshaul]

I have not tried the "quick pulse" method, only the "blend to hell" method, which doesn't work well at all. So if your blender is only going to give you a BtH option, I'd suggest an alternate route. I like your idea of taking the seeds and mechanically crushing them somehow, either with a mallet or maybe a rolling pin (in a bag of course). I vote you give it a go and report back .

I just sort of whacked on them with my hands for a while. It seems to have worked - I added a bit more pomegranate later, and the stuff I've smashed diffused much more quickly. Freezing and unfreezing also seems to make a difference.

[Kent Wang]

I've used a clamp juicer. Good yield, but a bit slow.