Every summer season from early June by way of August, a minimum of as quickly 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 great pure berry farm merely down the freeway.)
I favor to get all of my selecting accomplished sooner than the heat of the day makes it unbearable.
I’ve this annoying conduct of being a pasty-white specific particular person, so the mere level out of photo voltaic and I flip proper right into a steamed lobster.
Strawberries, pink and black currants, blackberries, gooseberries, and my non-public favorite – blueberries all end up coming home with me. Some get made into jam immediately, others go 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 discover your self selecting 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 middle of winter when you make them along with your private or native berries.
These frozen grocery retailer berries don’t consider, and the value for modern berries in January is astronomical.
When you concern throughout 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 a superb cheaper alternative, plus you get to decide 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 convenient blueberry rising data. It’s one issue to poke some bushes throughout the flooring and hope for the proper, and one different issue altogether to know what to do to ensure an excellent yield. It’s an excellent be taught; you’ll have to try it out.
After getting a great deal of blueberries, it on a regular basis 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 an excellent methodology to be sure to can get pleasure from these tasty treats year-round.
Freezing blueberries is easy to do and requires no specific instruments previous a sheet pan. Many berries with better water content material materials or thinner skins don’t freeze all that correctly and end up a mushy mess even when frozen. Blueberries, then once more, freeze fantastically. Granted, they might nonetheless be comfy when thawed.
Why Are My Berries Light and Squishy As soon as I Thaw Them?
When you freeze blueberries, the water inside them freezes into tiny ice crystals. These crystals penetrate the cell partitions of the berries. That’s excellent whereas the berries are frozen, nevertheless after they thaw, now the cells of the berry have misplaced their structural integrity, so the berry could be comfy and barely mushy.
As soon as you employ frozen blueberries for baking or points like pancakes, it’s best in order so as to add the blueberries whereas they’re nonetheless frozen. This could assure irrespective of you’re making doesn’t end up being absolutely purple and might help the berries protect their kind whereas they put together dinner.
In truth, if you happen to want to make a batch of blueberry basil mead, I extraordinarily advocate that you simply simply freeze your blueberries and thaw them first. Doing so helps launch the juices, and other people mushy berries make for larger mead.
Okay, let’s freeze some blueberries.
Wash Your Berries
It’s very important to rinse your berries sooner than you freeze them. Washing them as quickly as they’ve thawed is type of unattainable as they’ll be pretty comfy. Berries rising nearer to the underside are normally dirty from rain splashing mud and dirt on them.
Rinse your berries correctly in chilly water. I favor to fill my sink with chilly water and supplies them an excellent swish sooner than scooping them out proper right into a colander. Then I’ll give them one different good rinse with my sink sprayer.
Dry Your Berries
This subsequent step may be a really highly effective, as a result of it’s what is going on to ensure your berries gained’t stick collectively as quickly as they’re frozen. You’ll need to confirm your berries are absolutely dry sooner than freezing them, or they might stick collectively in an unlimited frozen mass.
To dry the berries, I put down a number of kitchen towels on my counter or desk and gently unfold the berries out proper right into a single layer. I attempt to confirm they’ve a great deal of room and good airflow, so all of them dry correctly.
Now, go do one factor else for an hour or so whereas they dry. It’s summertime; there’s on a regular basis one factor that should be accomplished, correct?
Freeze Your Blueberries
As quickly because the berries are absolutely dry, gently unfold them out on a sheet pan. Make certain the blueberries are in a single layer. You presumably can cram pretty various on there. Place the sheet pan throughout 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 final container destined for the freezer. Since they aren’t caught collectively in frozen clumps, chances are you’ll retailer them in a plastic tub, a freezer bag, or my preferred method, a vacuum seal bag.
A phrase about vacuum sealing
In case your vacuum sealer has a light setting, it is doable you may need to use that. In another case, the berries could be sealed pretty tightly throughout the bag. This isn’t primarily a difficulty whereas frozen, however it makes for additional mushy berries as they thaw. Give your berries room to breathe.
Proper right here’s a hyperlink to the vacuum sealer I private; it’s cheap, a great sealer, and I prefer it quite a bit I’ve bought various 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 flexibility to grab a handful for snacking, two cups for muffins, an entire bag for a pie, irrespective of you need with out having to try to interrupt off a little bit of icy blueberry mash.
I wish to make use of those frozen blueberries as delicious edible ice cubes and might normally seize a handful to plop in my switchel or lemonade.
Come January, you’ll actually respect the effort you place into selecting, cleaning and freezing. Hmm, now I want blueberry pancakes.
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