Every summer season season season from early June via August, a minimal of as shortly as per week, you’ll uncover me up early, berry basket in hand, heading to our native pick-your-own berry farm. (We’re lucky ample to have a terrific pure berry farm merely down the freeway.)
I favor to get all of my deciding on accomplished forward of the heat of the day makes it unbearable.
I’ve this annoying conduct of being a pasty-white explicit particular particular person, so the mere stage out of image voltaic and I flip right correct proper right into a steamed lobster.
Strawberries, pink and black currants, blackberries, gooseberries, and my private favorite – blueberries all end up coming dwelling with me. Some get made into jam immediately, others go right correct proper right into a batch of mead, and nonetheless others I freeze so we’re capable of get pleasure from native berries all 12 months prolonged.
Blueberries are the house favorite, so we uncover your self deciding on spherical 20 quarts or further over the blueberry season. Smoothies, pancakes, muffins, scones and even blueberry syrup all type 1,000,000 situations larger in the midst of winter when you make them alongside collectively together with your private or native berries.
These frozen grocery retailer berries don’t consider, and the price for up to date berries in January is astronomical.
Everytime you concern all via the carbon worth of getting these tiny cartons of berries to your grocery retailer and the ecological costs of consuming out of season, these flavorless berries aren’t worth it.
So, we put the work in now.
In truth, rising your private blueberries is an excellent cheaper totally different, plus you get to find out on the variability. This season, I purchased to type the Chandler variety of blueberriesand I’m hooked!
To get buckets of blueberries 12 months after 12 months, I’ve put collectively this useful blueberry rising data. It’s one drawback to poke some bushes all via the flooring and hope for the appropriate, and one fully totally different drawback altogether to know what to do to verify an exquisite yield. It’s an exquisite be taught; you’ll want to try it out.
After getting various blueberries, it recurrently helps to have some blueberry recipe inspiration when deciding what to do with all of them.
Wherever you end up getting your blueberries, freezing them is a superb methodology to you must undoubtedly can get pleasure from these tasty treats year-round.
Freezing blueberries is easy to do and requires no explicit units earlier a sheet pan. Many berries with increased water content material materials supplies provides or thinner skins don’t freeze all that precisely and end up a mushy mess even when frozen. Blueberries, then as quickly as further, freeze fantastically. Granted, they might nonetheless be comfy when thawed.
Why Are My Berries Light and Squishy As shortly as I Thaw Them?
Everytime you freeze blueberries, the water inside them freezes into tiny ice crystals. These crystals penetrate the cell partitions of the berries. That’s superb whereas the berries are frozen, nonetheless after they thaw, now the cells of the berry have misplaced their structural integrity, so the berry may be comfy and barely mushy.
As shortly as you make the most of frozen blueberries for baking or components like pancakes, it’s best in order so as in order so as to add the blueberries whereas they’re nonetheless frozen. This would possibly assure regardless of you’re making doesn’t end up being fully purple and should help the berries defend their selection whereas they put collectively dinner.
In truth, in case you happen to want to make a batch of blueberry basil mead, I terribly advocate that you simply simply merely freeze your blueberries and thaw them first. Doing so helps launch the juices, and totally different people mushy berries make for larger mead.
Okay, let’s freeze some blueberries.
Wash Your Berries
It’s important to rinse your berries forward of you freeze them. Washing them as shortly as they’ve thawed is kind of unattainable as they are going to be pretty comfy. Berries rising nearer to the underside are normally dirty from rain splashing mud and dirt on them.
Rinse your berries precisely in chilly water. I favor to fill my sink with chilly water and offers them an exquisite swish forward of scooping them out right correct proper right into a colander. Then I’ll give them one fully totally different good rinse with my sink sprayer.
Dry Your Berries
This subsequent step is also a extraordinarily extraordinarily environment friendly, due to it’s what is going on on to verify your berries gained’t stick collectively as shortly as they’re frozen. You’ll need to substantiate your berries are fully dry forward of freezing them, or they might stick collectively in an unlimited frozen mass.
To dry the berries, I put down fairly a number of kitchen towels on my counter or desk and gently unfold the berries out right correct proper right into a single layer. I attempt to substantiate they’ve various room and good airflow, so all of them dry precisely.
Now, go do one difficulty else for an hour or so whereas they dry. It’s summertime; there’s recurrently one difficulty that should be accomplished, acceptable?
Freeze Your Blueberries
As shortly because of the berries are fully dry, gently unfold them out on a sheet pan. Make sure that the blueberries are in a single layer. You presumably can cram pretty diverse on there. Place the sheet pan all via the freezer for two hours or until the berries are frozen sturdy.
Bundle deal Your Blueberries
Working shortly, in order that they don’t begin to thaw or perspire, swap the berries to their closing container destined for the freezer. Since they aren’t caught collectively in frozen clumps, chances are high excessive you’ll retailer them in a plastic tub, a freezer bag, or my hottest method, a vacuum seal bag.
A phrase about vacuum sealing
In case your vacuum sealer has a light-weight setting, it is doable chances are high you will need to make use of that. In a single different case, the berries may be sealed pretty tightly all via the bag. This isn’t primarily a difficulty whereas frozen, however it makes for further mushy berries as they thaw. Give your berries room to breathe.
Right correct proper right here’s a hyperlink to the vacuum sealer I private; it’s low-cost, a terrific sealer, and I need it pretty a bit I’ve bought diverse for family members as objects.
And that’s that – easy frozen blueberries.
Now when you get a hankering for blueberries, you’ll merely have the pliability to grab a handful for snacking, two cups for muffins, an entire bag for a pie, regardless of you need with out having to try to interrupt off just a bit little little bit of icy blueberry mash.
I need to make use of those frozen blueberries as delicious edible ice cubes and should normally seize a handful to plop in my switchel or lemonade.
Come January, you’ll really respect the difficulty you place into deciding on, cleaning and freezing. Hmm, now I would like blueberry pancakes.
Get the well-known Rural Sprout publication delivered to your inbox.
Along with Sunday musings from our editor, Tracey, along with “What’s Up Wednesday” our roundup of what’s in season and new article updates and alerts.
