How we store our fresh-picked Dewberries

Currently we have about 14 pounds of fresh dewberries picked after only two days. Correction:  We've eaten some and used some to make breakfast smoothies with kefir. So let's just say we have a good bit of dewberries and we'll likely pick some more today.  What do we do with all these berries?

We're eventually going to use a bunch of them to make dewberry jelly and I'll be posting the process again soon.  If you can't wait, you can read last year's blog post describing how we make dewberry jelly by clicking here.  But the question remains, what do we do with all these berries until we make jelly or eat them?

Bucket of ripe dewberries

We like to freeze them, but it is important to freeze them in a particular way so that they don't all freeze together in a lump.  You want them frozen in a way that you can measure out what you need for recipes. Back when I was in the grocery business, I learned about a process called IQF. IQF stands for Individually Quick Frozen. Companies put items like berries, peas, corn, chicken nuggets, etc. on a conveyor belt and run them through a blast freezer that freezes them very quickly so that they aren't all stuck together.  That's what we like to do with our berries.

Except that we don't have a conveyor belt or a blast freezer!  But where there's a will there's a way.  Here is our process.  We put our dewberries in the sink and soak in water.  (Ignore the box of baking soda.  The baking soda is just observing the washing process.  It plays no role in this.)  Little bugs and worms and leaves and straw will rise to the surface and you can scoop them out.  Agitate the berries and water to further remove any dust or debris, then remove from the water and spray down again in the sink.

Bathing the berries

Remove them from the sink and allow them to drip dry.  You can shake them gently to do this and this is a pretty good time to do some quality control, picking out damaged ones or unripened ones.

Berries are drying

Next take a shallow tray or pan with sides and pour a single layer of berries onto the surface and spread them out with your hands.

Arranging the berries on the tray

We've recently reorganized our outside freezer so we have room in there.  We place the tray of berries in the freezer.

Into the freezer

It takes around four hours for the berries to freeze solid.  Here is a pizza pan full of frozen berries that we removed prior to putting the new tray in.  You can see that they are frosted.  

Out of the freezer

All you have to do is move them around a little bit with your hands and you can pour them directly into a gallon Zip Loc Freezer bag.  They pour like marbles so be careful.

We'll fill up the freezer bags as much as we can and seal them.

And here we go.  So now when the recipe calls for 5 pints of berries to make jelly, you can easily pour them out and measure exactly what you need.  Or if you are making a smoothie, you can grab a handful and toss in your blender.  You can add to ice cream, make cobblers or pies, or snack on them too!

IQF Dewberries

So far we have four gallons of dewberries frozen like this.  I think we'll get a few more.  You can never have too many fresh frozen berries!