mortar, filling it to about half of its volume and gently pound
with the aid of a wooden pestle to remove pulp and skins from
the stones. Initially, vigorous pounding was avoided as some
of the fruit escaped from the mortar on colliding with the
pestle. Pounding was continued until all skins, pulp and stones
separated. Ripe fruit were added to fill the mortar followed by
gentle pounding. Pounding was done more vigorously as
unripe and ripe fruit mixed. The process was continued until
the slurry texture of the ripe fruit pulp was significantly
reduced. This state was achieved when unripe and ripe fruit
pulps were thoroughlymixed. Increase in proportion of unripe
fruit to ripe fruit reduced slurry texture of pulp obtained. A
low proportion of unripe fruit to ripe fruit increased slurry
texture of pulp making it difficult to squeeze liquid extract
containing sugars from such pulp. Five hundred millilitres
(500 ml) of water were added to the pulp which was mixed
using the pestle and transferred to a clean 50 litre plastic
container. The pulping process was repeated with fresh portions
of ripe and unripe fruit transferring pulped fruit to the 50
litre container. The process was continued until 17.6 kg of ripe
fruit and 23.3 kg of unripe fruit were pulped and the pulp
transferred to the 50 litre container. Up to 17.6 litres of water
were added to the bulk pulped fruit to allow for extraction of
sugars from the pulp and water mixture. The mixture was left
to settle for two hours to allow for extraction of the sugars. A
liquid extract was squeezed from the mixture using a cheese
cloth sterilized in boiling water and collected into a clean handling dish.