concentrate

[honsten]

what does concentrate mean in juice terms (from concentrate)

[andy hughes]

It means the juice in its natrual form, as opposed to 'diluted' - which means it has water added to it. If the  carton says 'conentrate' then it should be pure juice, if it says 'juice drink' then it's been diluted with water.

[Clanad]

Actually... this term is found on packs of pure fruit juice. In this case the fruit has been picked, squeezed and concentrated (through the evaporation of a large quantity of the natural water present in the juice by continuous evaporators) in the country of origin. The 'concentrated juice' is then frozen and shipped to the country of use for packing. Fruit juice packers then reconstitute the juice restoring it to its original strength by adding the same amount of water. They use brix and acid ratios to ensure that this meets the internationally recognized standards. Whereas, not from concentrate juice is taken from fruit which is squeezed in the country of origin and then lightly pasteurised and frozen or aseptically packed for shipment to the country where it will be sold. Freshly squeezed juice is taken from fruit which is shipped to the country of use and squeezed there for immediate use. It may be unpasteurized or lightly pasteurized....

[brachiopod]

It's the cheaper 'orange juices' that are made from concentrate.

As clanad says, the squeezed orange juice is concentrated by evaporation, usually at reduced pressure. This means the boiling point of the OJ is reduced, and results in a less 'cooked' flavour, and minimise the loss of 'volatiles', (the complex molecules in the juice and oils of the orange that give it its flavour)

The concentrated form makes it cheaper to transport, as you are not shipping excess volumes of water across the globe, and this water can simply be 'put back in' when required. (ie at the packaging plant).

Various additives and flavour enhancers are used at this stage to mask the 'cooked' taste and make it seem 'fresher' to the palate.

Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice (FCOJ) is a major commodity (like coffee, cocoa, sugar etc) traded on all the world's commodity exchanges.

[brachiopod]

btw, clanad, what is/are 'brix' ?

[ursula62]

Brix was a chemist interested in plant juices.

http://www.crossroads.ws/brix/index-page2.html

[brachiopod]

Cheers, ursula !!