If you have an abundance of fresh blueberries, but you don't know what to do with all of them, you can make some concentrated blueberry juice and freeze it for future use. Using just a few household ingredients and about 3 hours of your time, making juice concentrate is easy.
Instructions
1. Rinse the blueberries in the large metal strainer with cold water to remove any debris, bugs or pesticide. Shake the strainer to mix the berries while rinsing.
2. Fill the stockpot with the blueberries. The berries should fill the 8-quart stockpot a little more than halfway.
3. Pour cold, purified water over the berries in the pot until the berries are submerged about 1 inch under the water.
4. Cover the pot of berries, and simmer for about 2 hours, checking frequently to make sure there is enough water in the pot. If needed, add water to the pot, one cup at a time, to avoid scorching.
5. Using the potato masher, thoroughly mash all of the blueberries in the pot. The liquid level should rise to about 3 quarters of the way full.
6. Place the metal strainer over a large container, like a 1-gallon ice cream bucket, and carefully pour the stockpot of mashed blueberries into the strainer.
7. Use the masher to squish the blueberries into the strainer. This further extracts liquid from the pulp. There should be enough liquid by this point to fill a 1-gallon container.
8. Pour the resulting liquid into the stockpot, and place the stockpot back onto the stove. Bring to a rolling boil, whilst stirring in the sugar. Let the liquid boil for about 2 minutes, then turn off the stove.
9. Let the liquid cool. Pour the liquid into containers of your choice for freezing. For every 6 oz. of this blueberry juice concentrate, you can make about 2 quarts of blueberry drink.
Tags: about hours, blueberries into, blueberries into strainer, blueberry juice, into strainer
