How do commercial juices sit on shelves for weeks to a month or two and mostly taste the same when you finally crack em open? My juice changes so much, I have a vary hard time not getting bland juice after a week to three of sit time or it’s just very dry. I’ve been making juice for close to 1.5-2 years now and most my shake and vape stuff is pretty great but if I left it sit it goes bland.
For a bit of info I love citrus juices so I work with a lot of oranges, limes, lemons, tangerines, but I also make some pastry and dairy flavors, as well as fruit mixes, the creamy pastry ones seem to hold up slightly better than the others!
Thanks for any answers I may get!
Well, you haven't tasted their juices right off the production line, that would be quite different to what it's like after sitting on a shelf :) So it's not the same.
Citrus flavors contain some of the smallest volatiles, which is why they can be so sharp to the throat right after mixing, but these escape the bottle very easily. Most commercial juices are sold in glass bottles to prevent just this, as they are small enough to seep through plastic and poor caps. They need to be retained in the mix long enough to stick around.
As mentioned, it's possible some binding agent is used as well as proprietary steeping methods. Some development probably went into making it appear fresh after storage. I find commercial juices to be over flavored, which would be terrible in the first month, but kinda works after a very long steep I guess.
But I'm still talking citrus here, it strikes me as odd that you talk about creams and such only holding up slightly better. They pretty much always improve over time and should be amazing after a month. The accompanying fruit flavors might suffer from some of the citrus problems, but if the pastries fade too, something is wrong. Exposure to sunlight is one way to ruin any juice. Heat, leaky caps, repeated opening or shaking too.
Hmm it could definitely be that I don’t steep my juices nearly long enough the average bottle I make lasts a week, and tbh my longest steeps have probably sat for at most 3 weeks. I’ve had a lot of the same concentrates since I started making my own juice, but the ones I use frequently are replaced every 3-6 months. Wondering if they could’ve gone bad?
I'm mostly into fruits and berries so I don't do a lot of steeping either, but my mixes hold up fine in LDPE for a month at least. Granted I don't use citrus flavors that much.
Concentrates lose potency over time, a bottle that is more than a year old could have lost some of its edge, especially if opened frequently. Try a single flavor test. I have a lot of old concentrates that seem fine to me, so I use them, but I can't develop or judge recipes since they may be off the mark.
I always put a tiny drop of sour wizard in most things with citrus. It helps for some time to bring out that tangy feel again that I had when it was freshly mixed.
But concerning the commercial juices. I have no clue what they use. Probably some stabilizer like ascorbic acid. But I guess it won't work well in most recipes that aren't fruity.
I don't remember where I saw it but apparently they pre-steep their bases, and they only add flavors by batches, so the flavors stay more fresh and strong. They also store them in perfect temperature and stuff. They hire chemists after all, they know their shit.
What do you mean by pre-steep their bases?
This is merely an assumption, but I'm guessing they make a big batch of just the flavours mixed together, no PG/VG. Let that sit for a while and then mix it into the PG/VG.
Again I'm just guessing.
That does nothing other than speed up the mixing process. Flavor blends don't steep... steeping starts when flavors and base are mixed.
A number of commercial mixes use a lot of flavoring. Even then, citrus flavors will still tend to disappear sooner or later.
In my opinion, I find most of my flavours taste better over time but I also keep my flavourings in a cool dark place. Some certainly do seem to discolour and change flavour over time, but by and large I find they hold up really well if you look after them. Some of my flavours are over 2 years old because I bought large bottles and only use small amounts at a time. Just make sure to give them a good shake before use.
Most companies steep their juices before they bottle them. I work for one and we steep for at least a week before it even goes into the bottles. Even then it sits in a warehouse/cold storage for a good amount of time depending on the volume of sales, so chances are by the time it hits the store shelves it's already pretty steeped. And I would assume steeping changes more drastically the newer the juice is, and the longer it steeps the less it changes, kinda like half of a bell curve.
Interesting do you mind me asking where you work? And if so then do you mind me asking what you do there?