Pineapple Juice (Blended and Strained)

Name: Pineapple Juice, Blended and Strained
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Ingredients: 500 g pineapple, peeled and chopped; 2 cups water; 1 cup ice; Sugar, to taste (ripe pineapple often needs none)

Half a kilo of pineapple blended with water and ice and strained to take out the fibre. Five minutes for six glasses.

Total: 5

JUMP TO RECIPE

Pineapple blended with water and ice and poured through a sieve. Six glasses in five minutes, and a ripe pineapple usually needs no sugar at all.

Strain it, for the fibre

Pineapple is fibrous in a way that most fruit is not. Those fibres run through the flesh and a blender shreds them rather than breaking them down, so an unstrained juice is stringy however long you run it.

A sieve and thirty seconds solves it. What stays behind is mostly fibre, and there is not much of it.

Taste before adding sugar

A properly ripe pineapple is very sweet and needs nothing. An under-ripe one is sharp and no amount of sugar makes it taste ripe.

Judge it by smell at the base rather than by colour: a ripe pineapple smells sweet before you cut it, and the colour of the skin says very little.

Bromelain, and what it does

Fresh pineapple contains bromelain, an enzyme that breaks down protein. It has three practical consequences worth knowing:

Pineapple and milk together turn bitter within an hour, as the enzyme works on the milk proteins.
Fresh pineapple will not set in gelatine, which is protein. Tinned or cooked pineapple is fine, because heat destroys the enzyme.
Your tongue tingles after a lot of fresh pineapple. That is the enzyme acting on the surface of your mouth, and it stops.

None of it matters in this recipe, where the pineapple meets only water and is drunk immediately.

Ice in the blender

Blending the ice with the fruit rather than adding it to the glass gives a colder, slightly thicker juice and dilutes it evenly rather than gradually.

More pineapple

Piña colada — served in the shell.
Hawaiian sandwich — where else it goes.
Apple juice — also blended and strained.
Colombian fruit — in water or in milk.
Kiwi juice — the other green one.

Pineapple Juice FAQ

Do I have to strain it?

If you want juice rather than a stringy purée, yes. Pineapple fibres are tough and a blender shreds them instead of breaking them down. Straining takes thirty seconds and leaves very little behind.

How do I know if a pineapple is ripe?

Smell the base: a ripe one smells sweet before you cut it. Skin colour is a poor guide. An under-ripe pineapple is sharp and sugar will not make it taste ripe.

Why does pineapple juice with milk turn bitter?

Fresh pineapple contains bromelain, an enzyme that breaks down protein, and it acts on the proteins in milk. Within an hour the mixture tastes bitter. Cooked or tinned pineapple has no such effect, because heat destroys the enzyme.

Why will my pineapple jelly not set?

Same reason: bromelain breaks down the gelatine, which is protein. Use tinned pineapple, or cook the fresh fruit first, and it will set normally.

Should the ice go in the blender or the glass?

In the blender. It gives a colder, slightly thicker juice that is evenly diluted, rather than one that gets progressively more watery as ice melts in the glass.

📖 Recipe