Blueberry Picking

[Jared77]

Use those rocks to line the pond!!!!

 

[baymule]

@Ridgerunner I bag the berries with my food saver. If fresh, they get crushed by the vacuum. Frozen, they don't get crushed. I used to bag them in Ziploc bags and use what I wanted, but got ice crystals and the skins got tough. Vacuum sealed, they seem to stay fresher.

@Nyboy HIDE the blueberry vodka under the counter, pushed to the back with stuff in front of it. Duh! !

 

[Ridgerunner]

I generally put the food in the food saver bags and freeze them overnight before I seal them. That way I don't have to worry about moisture being sucked up into the seal from the vacuum. That's cooked chicken, peas, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, chard, and anything else I seal for the freezer. I don't do that with blueberries since I either dehydrate them or use them fairly soon for jam or jelly.

Before I dehydrate my blueberries I freeze them in a zip loc bag, then put them in the dehydrator. If you look up dehydrating blueberries online they tell you to blanch the berries so the skin will crack and they will dry out a lot faster. If you try that all the juice runs out. If you freeze them instead of blanch them the skin still cracks when they thaw and you get much nicer dehydrated blueberries.

 

[Smart Red]

Good advice here, ridgerunner! I've always had problems with frost in my berries.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have a lot of problems with frost in zip loc bags if I try to store anything long term. I use them a lot for short term stuff like storing berries until I get enough to make jelly or jam or tomatoes until I get enough for a canning. Even short term I sometimes get some frost.

The food saver vacuum sealer does a great job. To me it is well worth the money. I recently ate some freezer cole slaw I put up in 2011 with the food saver vacuum sealer. it was still good. If that had been a zip loc bag it would have been inedible. But one of the problems with the vacuum sealer is that it can suck moisture out of the product up to where it is trying to seal. If it is wet, it will not seal. That's where freezing the product in the bag before I seal it comes in. It solves that problem.

 

[baymule]

I have frozen in the bag before sealing too. Works real well for some juicy fruits and vegetables.

@Ridgerunner what do you do with dehydrated blueberries?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Put them in oatmeal. Use them as you would fresh, just rehydrate first.

 

[baymule]

Would that work for pancakes too?

 

[Smart Red]

Yup!