Yummy Jaboticaba

[janus]

Tried my first Jaboticaba today.
It has my vote for yummiest fruit.

The flesh was sweet and tangy like sorbet.
With the skin having taste which can't describe but nice counterpoint to sweetness of flesh.

Also pretty sure that skin is very good for you due to taste and deep colour.
Going to learn what this plant likes and try to get the 4 crops a year which this plant is capable off

[salem]

Agreed Janus, very tasty.

I've got a few plants in the ground, both black and yellow but they are very slow growing, or seem to be for me.

Can't wait till they start producing.

[janus]

Got one from you at one of the meets.

That one is still small but going well.

The yellow sounds good.

Jaboticaba - Yellow

Is a yellow fruiting species with a distinctive sweet tangy flavour reminiscent of pineapple. We consider this tree a showpiece. Its lime green leaves have an unusual soft, almost powdery appearance and its beautiful golden green pendulous branches make it a worthy feature in the garden for its highly ornamental nature.

Going to try and get each variety available.

[Coquero]

jaboticabas are awesome!! cant beleive they aren't more popular... almost like grapes but with a thicker skin

apparently it takes 7 years to fruit if grown from seed? do cuttings work and produce quicker???

[juicemonkey]

awesome arent they

but like a good black 'english' mulberry

bloody delicious with no shelf life

you'll just have to grow your own! plant more than 1
then when you do get your fruit plant the pips to grow even more:D

[tribal]

i think these have an awesome shelf life! i picked mine too early this season and they were sour and tart like a lilipilly with VERY tannin rich tasting skin. But i left them (hundreds from one tree!) on the bench for a few days and they were so so sweet. kept eating them over the next 5 days or more and they just got better!
I read they are left for weeks to ferment an alcohol in brazil i think.

A massive producer as Janus is saying, produced far far more than the grape vines here and the fruit was much better. and seemingly no need for covering from fruitfly.

grafting reduces time to fruit to 2 years from memory. Grows easily but slowly from seed.

Impressed!

also ive seriously gotta taste the yellow one now and get some of them going!

[juicemonkey]

ok then maybe im wrong when they are picked fresh

but its been my experience that when bought from markets they seem to spoil quickly

just how long theyve been picked already before they become 'new to me'

[gecko]

Jaboticaba - very yummy
M.cauliflora -Common J. fruits more heavily and more crops throughout the year than M.jaboticaba-Large leafed/fruited J.
about 3-4 weeks from flowers to first ripe fruit.
I miss them since I moved away from NNSW.
they dont grow well in cold/hot dry climate I have here in Nth Vic, IME they do best with fairly constant or regular moisture.
They also seem to like their trace elements so on the high pH soils here they just cant get growing.

last batch I had was 4yrs ago.
about 10kg, crushed in a barrel added a bit of water and a bit of sugar and pitched in some EC-1118 yeast.
left on the skins to extract colour and tannin, but i left for a bit long (3days) before I pressed it out.
I extracted too much tannin from skins and or seeds.

the flavour is a bit thin cos i added too much sugar and water for the fruity flavour to come out enough.
quite a tanniny dry finish, i think about 16% ABV.
If I get another chance at it , I'll leave the sugar out and press off the skins after 36hr to get a fuller flavour with less tannin bite.
I still have about 12litres.
Still a drinkable dry wine.
best Jaboticaba wine Ive tasted though

[juicemonkey]

good thing is too that when you take that pulp out of the wort(?)
and spread it thin and cover with leaf litter or compost, in a few weeks you get massive even germination of jaboticabas

IME and that of the guy who showed me, the few days fermenting really helps awaken the seed

[gecko]

If i wanted to grow a heap of them I reckon I'd do it just the way you described it JM.
Fermenting definitely helps as a pretreatment for germination of lots of fleshy fruited seeds.
any germination inhibitors may be digested by the yeast and
I think B vitamins may help with germination.
Thiamine is suposed to be helpful for cuttings