Country Living in a Cariboo Valley

Homesteading in BC

Can You Ever Have Too Many Berries?

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What a fantastic year it has been here for berries. We had lots of rain, followed by heat and sunshine. Thank goodness we also have lots of bees. The end result? It’s been the best berry season around here in years and our pantry is now full of canned berries.

 

Not only did we can Saskatoon berries, we also froze enough to be able to make wine later on. I find that because of the time crunch with so many things to do at this time of year, it is easier just to wash them and freeze them.

I like to write the weight of each bag on the outside, so come Fall, when I have more free time, I can easily pull out 25 pounds worth and get some wine started.

 

 
Here’s a mornings worth of canning – 12 pints and 4 quarts of Saskatoon berries. Those large buckets in the back? That’s two separate batches of beer that are making. We use the beer kits you can buy at the grocery store.
 
I can the berries in a boiling water bath, hot packing the jars and canning them for 15 minutes for pints, 20 minutes for quarts.
I like the boiling water bath much better than the pressure canner. At least with the BWB I can do pints and quarts together and just remove the pints after 15 minutes, letting the quarts go for another 5 minutes on their own.
 
The canning also goes much faster because with the pressure canner, I have to let it vent, then build up pressure before it starts the canning process. Afterwards, I have to wait for the canner to cool down before I can pull out the jars. Amazing how much faster it is to use the boiling water bath.
 
Of course, there are many vegetables that NEED to be pressure canned. Always check your book and never make any assumptions that you can just water bath can any vegetable! Make sure the food you process will be all right to eat.
 
(If you want to see the process of water bath canning, just click on the link. Canning Sauerkraut uses the same process, but the time of processing will be different. It will give you an idea of how to do it.)

 

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