Well, I decided it was time to get busy with posting to this blog. It is well into the berry season and I have already juiced, jammed and jellied many pounds of berries. Oregon is a paradise for berries as the climate is usually just right for sun ripened sweetness. Our cherry season was brief but plentiful and I put up many pint bags (frozen) and cup jars of jelly. The strawberry season was so fast that I didn’t even get out in the field but once. We froze about 10 quarts of berries. No jam or juice though. I also got about 15 pints of red raspberries into the freezer.
I will use some of the frozen fruit later in the season to add to pear and apple juice batches. It adds good flavor variation. I just put the frozen fruit right on top of the fresh fruit in the basket of the juicer and proceed as usual.
When I do juice berries I intend to use the concentrated, rich juice later in syrups or as jelly. Not so much for straight drinking unless it is diluted with mineral water, etc. and maybe a little sweetener.
With fruit like cherries, strawberries, blueberries, I usually run the pulp through a Foley food mill after juicing and add back some juice to make jam. I use Pomona low methoxyl pectin and honey mostly.
Here are some pictures of our blueberry picking outing today:
Disappearing into the blue yonder.
We’re almost at our goal of 4 buckets. The basket is my portable office: cell phone and order pad.
Easy pickin’s.
A good hours work. That’s my number one picker, Ciaran.
