Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Blueberry juice


The blueberry farm is closed. The signs are put away; buckets cleaned for storage; books balanced. But there are still a few blueberries on the bushes. A few berries beset with persistent stems, and polluted with squishy, shriveled berries. It would be torture to sort the berries for market. But the berries, stems and all, are suitable for juice.

Monday Julie and I picked bucketsful of blueberries to be made into juice. Last year we bought a steamer juicer. Turning berries into juice allows us to use berries that don't meet market quality standards. We sell the juice, or we add sugar and pectin and turn it into blueberry jelly.

Our juicer has three parts. The bottom section holds water; the middle collects the juice; and the top, colunder-like-container, holds the berries. Steam from boiling water rises through a cone-like passage to the top compartment where it extracts juice from the berries. The juice drips to the middle section where it flows down a flexible tube to a stainless steal pan.

Like fresh berries, blueberry juice is rich in anti-oxidants and vitamins. Our blueberries juice contains only blueberries, with no added sugar. The red-violet juice is full of flavor. As one of our customers said, it will tickle your tonsils.





5 comments:

  1. We used some of the blueberry juice you gave us to make a delicious--and easy--blueberry syrup for pancakes. If you're interested, I can email you the recipe.

    ~ Betsy

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  2. We are always interested in blueberry recipes.
    Thanks.

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  3. Delicious juice!
    -Nawal

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  4. I'm glad the last berries don't just go to waste. It's very interesting to see and read what you do with them. You're very resourceful.

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  5. We have a juicer just like that and love it! Your first picture in this post looks almost exactly like our kitchen counter/sink/windowsill!!! If you'd just have the juicer full of apples, it would be hard to tell the difference. :)

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