What to do with Black Berry pulp?

So my partner collected about 20 pounds of black berries this year. It went into the freezer until last Friday. I have since started fermenting it into black berry wine. It is all going smoothly and i am about to put it into its secondary fermenter( terminology!) Basically it is going to get an airlock on it now where as before it was in an open vessel which was stirred twice daily.

Now i am straining out the seeds/pulp. And i am wondering what i can do with it. I am not really wanting to freeze it. I am hoping to make some kind of kombucha tea thing. Or even make it into black berry vinegar. just using the pulp and possibly some cane sugar.

Has anyone done something like this? I have read about drying it into fruit leather, however i would like to hear if someone else has done it, first before i try the fruit leather.

Ooooh fruit leather! Fruit leather!

But for real, I'd do fruit leather.  

I tried the fruit leather once a few years back. It was SUPER seedy. I believe no one other than me was willing to eat it...and I have small children who love sweets. The blackberry flavor wasn't very strong when dried, because the crunching of the seeds gives it a lot of flavor.

Bascially, from what I recall: It's edible, but not delightful.

Yes I made blackberry fruit leather too and get that floss out because you’ll be using it almost every bite you take. Yes it was delicious. But hard on the teeth. Rather harder between the teeth!  The donkeys didn’t seem to mind at all. I used it as treats for them. I’m sure the cows would have loved it too, but didn’t try it on them as of yet.

Nicole Alderman wrote:I tried the fruit leather once a few years back. It was SUPER seedy. I believe no one other than me was willing to eat it...and I have small children who love sweets. The blackberry flavor wasn't very strong when dried, because the crunching of the seeds gives it a lot of flavor.

Bascially, from what I recall: It's edible, but not delightful.

This is what i have read about. It seems like it is fine and all. However it just isn't very satisfying.

I am leaning more towards making black berry vinegar. Using this method

Mary-Ellen Zands wrote:Yes I made blackberry fruit leather too and get that floss out because you’ll be using it almost every bite you take. Yes it was delicious. But hard on the teeth. Rather harder between the teeth!  The donkeys didn’t seem to mind at all. I used it as treats for them. I’m sure the cows would have loved it too, but didn’t try it on them as of yet.  

It seems making it into fruit leather would mean i am eating a lot of fruit leather by myself, as my partner would not be into the seediness.

Yea , i have a hard time believing my goats would eat it. The pigs would have no problem with it. Chickens might enjoy it. However i do need to prevent it from sprouting as my partner is very against propagating Black berries!

i think vinegar is probably the better option, too. you’ve already fermented out the vast majority of the sugar, and even if you add some back in, the texture will be pretty inferior for a fruit leather - compared to one made from fresh berries. and that’s not to mention the dead yeast flavor and being 75% seeds.

you’ll probably need to add some sugar anyway for vinegar, but at least you’ll be able to strain the whole mess before you try to consume it.

*sigh * ok ill change my answer I guess.  

When I make blackberry jam or ketchup I boil the fruit first, then put it through the fine screen on my vegetable ricer to get the majority of the seeds out. Since the seeds are not cooked, I can feed them to my chickens and not worry about them sprouting if they make it through the chicken gut (which is entirely possible). So when you filter the vinegar, you still have the option of boiling the seeds enough to kill them. I tend to do that with pumpkin seeds also so I don't end up with a garden full of volunteers.

So i added a bunch of water.

It is most likely 2/3 full of seeds/pulp and 1/3 full of water and about 1 cup of cane sugar


It will go next to the 2 other vinegar i am making right now! :)

Jordan, are you just counting on capturing wild vinegar organisms?
Won't it continue to do the wine fermentation since you've added more sugar, and that yeast is already there?

Jay Angler wrote:Jordan, are you just counting on capturing wild vinegar organisms?
Won't it continue to do the wine fermentation since you've added more sugar, and that yeast is already there?

From my limited knowledge of how this works. The "vinegar" eats alcohol.  Which than turns it into acetic acid or vinegar.

I am also going to be keeping it exposed to the air, where as if i was making wine or beer or mead. I would be putting an airlock on it to prevent vinegar organisms from getting in. I am also hoping keeping it near my apple cider vinegar jar(which is also being converted into vinegar right now) Along with a container of random apple cider/mead/blackberry wine which is also turning into vinegar.  Will help it gain the necessary organisms.

i will continue to stir the mixture daily to help introduce vinegar into it. I might add some apple cider vinegar to it. However i am not in any rush to use the vinegar so i might just wait, until it tastes right. And than put it into a contain which does not allow light into it.

Here is more information.

yup, the sugar will turn to alcohol (if what yeast are left can handle it), and then the alcohol will turn to vinegar. to jumpstart it, you could put just a bit of farther-along vinegar in there too...

another option could be
put it in a big barrel with some corn, barley, sugar and yeast, wait about a week, strain out the solids and boil and condense the liquid into some custom "medicinal hand Sanitizer"
hogs and chickens will enjoy the solids.

greg mosser wrote:yup, the sugar will turn to alcohol (if what yeast are left can handle it), and then the alcohol will turn to vinegar. to jumpstart it, you could put just a bit of farther-along vinegar in there too...

Since he's leaving it open to the air, won't airborne yeasts help?

Too bad your other half doesn't want to propagate black berries.
To me this would be a great chance to start a bunch in containers for home use or sale.
I would even  tout the fact they came from seed.
Most cane fruit starts come from cuttings, which is great for consistency but not genetic diversity.
I've never seen the seed sold before,  but if they are viable they could be sold dried by the ounce.

Anyway,  vinegar is a always useful, I hope you let us know how it turns out.

William Bronson wrote:

To me this would be a great chance to start a bunch in containers for home use or sale.

I suspect that here in BC (British Columbia, Canada) that you could not sell, nor even give away blackberry plants or seeds unless they were the fancy "thornless" version, which although they don't taste as nice, also aren't a serious danger to one's body. Himalayan Blackberry can take over almost any space in a year or two. If I can't get all the roots out, they come back for years despite chopping them whenever I can. Even dried, the thorns are dangerous to animals (including human animals), so chopping and dropping is only marginally useful. They do make decent bedding if put through our shredder, but that's not easy to do safely. I'm hoping to dig a biochar trench and HB could be one of the feed stocks for that.
If you'd like some Himalayan Blackberry seeds, I could easily send you some, but I'd recommend you get cuttings of the thornless version and I'm not sure I could successfully send those to the USA.

I have not taken seeds from my thornless ones and tried propagating them, but if I can get a few of my current projects finished off, that would be an interesting experiment to try. I wonder what percentage would be thornless, if any?

Leigh Tate wrote:

greg mosser wrote:yup, the sugar will turn to alcohol (if what yeast are left can handle it), and then the alcohol will turn to vinegar. to jumpstart it, you could put just a bit of farther-along vinegar in there too...

Since he's leaving it open to the air, won't airborne yeasts help?

they will, but adding a bit of really densely populated liquid will do more faster.

Jay Angler wrote:William Bronson wrote:

To me this would be a great chance to start a bunch in containers for home use or sale.

I suspect that here in BC (British Columbia, Canada) that you could not sell, nor even give away blackberry plants or seeds unless they were the fancy "thornless" version, which although they don't taste as nice, also aren't a serious danger to one's body.

This had me laughing out loud!
The worst part of me can think of wicked places for such a plant....
How does one harvest from such plants in the first place?

William Bronson wrote:

How does one harvest from such plants in the first place?

1. I use the buddy system - seriously - if you get tangled, you need help escaping as the huge thorns are hook shaped.
2. I always have a pair of secateurs in my pocket to "cut my way in and out".
3. Either I or my buddy usually carries a heavy coat hanger bent out to be a hook for pulling berries within reach.
4. I always use a "picking bucket" that hangs around my neck so both hands are free.

I have to be more careful than most as I react badly to the thorns which seem to harbor some sort of pathogen that I and some others are sensitive to. Hubby tolerates them better, but has no interest in berry picking - he figures that's my job!

It may seem like it's not worth it, but the wine is divine, I use my veggie ricer to get most of the seeds out to make awesome jam, and I've made Blackberry ketchup that I really like also. They are one of the most nutritious berries around also. They were introduced due to the 'survival food' nature of them, but as with so many introduced plants, they have the capacity to take over. Some years they're more prolific than others depending on the weather. If we were fully fenced and could get a pair of goats, it would be another matter, although even goats tend to only eat the tender new growth and won't deal with the big canes.

oh good, my suggestion was going to be vinegar, even before I saw you were making wine with it. Let us know how it turns out!

jordan barton wrote:So my partner collected about 20 pounds of black berries this year. It went into the freezer until last Friday. I have since started fermenting it into black berry wine. It is all going smoothly and i am about to put it into its secondary fermenter( terminology!) Basically it is going to get an airlock on it now where as before it was in an open vessel which was stirred twice daily.

Now i am straining out the seeds/pulp. And i am wondering what i can do with it. I am not really wanting to freeze it. I am hoping to make some kind of kombucha tea thing. Or even make it into black berry vinegar. just using the pulp and possibly some cane sugar.

Has anyone done something like this? I have read about drying it into fruit leather, however i would like to hear if someone else has done it, first before i try the fruit leather.

I'm sorry to veto the fruit leather idea. It will be mostly seeds - not very nice to chew through. Been there, done that, won't do it again. I'd rather feed it to the chicks.

a view inside the jar. note the vinegar mother on top


Side view showing some of the sediment


What the mother looked like. It was crumbly and lumpy


Straining out the sediment through a nut milk bag


Nut bag hanging to drain


Finished amount of black berry vinegar