Monday, July 4, 2011

How to Store Blueberries

 



You can store your blueberries in a number of ways. Before you store the berries, carefully go through the berries, discard any soft berries or berries with white areas on their skin, and remove stems. If you are planning to refrigerate or freeze your blueberries, do not wash the berries before you store them; wait to wash the berries until you are ready to use them. Cool your berries down to room temperature before storing them. By doing this, you can avoid a lot of condensation in the blueberry containers. Spread the blueberries out on cookie sheets or jelly roll pans and place the sheets or pans in front of a fan for a while before storing them, your blueberries will last longer. If you refrigerate your blueberries, put a folded paper towel in the container to absorb some of the condensation. Stored this way in the refrigerator, your blueberries should last at least a week. I have found that the best way to freeze blueberries is to freeze them individually. After I have graded the berries I leave the blueberries in a single layer on cookie sheets and place the cookie sheets in the freezer until the berries have frozen. (If your household is like mine, you may want to let family members know the cookie sheets are in the freezer, so someone does not tip the pans by accident. Believe me, chasing blueberries across the floor loses its appeal pretty fast.) When the berries are frozen (within 24 hours), I transfer the berries to freezer bags or other freezer containers. When you are ready to use the berries, you will find them easy to measure. The berries should be good up to twelve months.

Information taken from:  http://www.blueberrywoman.com/research.htm


Note:
You can do the suggested above in regards to drying and freezing the blueberries individually, but our family has never had any trouble with just taking the berries out of the container putting them in our freezer bags and freezing them just like that.  Blueberries are diffidently better if you do not wash them before you freeze them!