We started picking the pomegranates today. We juice them by hand, and then freeze the juice for later use. A five-gallon bucket of pomegranates makes about a gallon of juice. We have five more buckets to process. We have a number of different varieties: wonderful, ambrosia, garnet sash, kashmir. Each variety has a different color and taste. Wonderfuls are the darkest.
I have found the easiest way to get the seeds out is to cut the pomegranate in half, then turn it inside out sort of like an orange. Then hold a half loosely in my hand, seed side down, and smack the pomegranate shell with the backside of a wooden spoon several times. This dislodges the seeds and they all fall out with a few smacks. Then we just use a hand juicing colander to extract the juice from the seeds.
Love pomegranates! Didn’t know you had so many varieties.
David’s mom and dad gave us all the young plants as a gift eleven years ago and we planted them down by the little barn.
The juice comes from the seeds??
Yes, each seed is wrapped in a wrapper of juice-bearing flesh. A juicing colander works great to squish all the juice off the seeds (basically like a mortal and pestle, but cone-shaped instead of round). For anyone who hasn’t (or doesn’t know they have) seen a juicing colander, here are a bunch of pictures: https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=juicing+colander&form=HDRSC2&first=1&cw=2027&ch=938