How to store viburnum at home

Rules for collecting viburnum

Viburnum berries are a real storehouse of nutrients and minerals. Dried - they are indispensable for making aromatic tea, fresh - for making compotes, jams or fruit drinks.

In order for the viburnum dishes to be not only as healthy as possible, but have unsurpassed taste, it is important not only to properly prepare the fruits for further processing, but also to observe several harvesting rules:

• the berries reach technical ripeness by the beginning of September, but harvesting is strongly recommended when the first frosts come. This is due to the fact that viburnum berries have a bitter tint, and after their "acquaintance" with a light frost, this effect disappears, and the berries become juicy and sweet;
• harvesting is carried out in dry, not too windy weather;
• clusters of viburnum are cut with scissors, very carefully, making sure that the berries do not crumble or crumple.

Fresh storage

And now all the clusters of viburnum are collected, carefully laid out in baskets, now it's up to the little thing - to decide how best to save them for the winter.

Of course, the best option is to keep the berries fresh and natural. At home, a cold room will do for this, for example, a cellar (there you need to pull the ropes and carefully hang the bunches for the winter) or an ordinary refrigerator (the bunches are laid out in dry containers, covered with a lid and stored on a special shelf designed for vegetables). In this form, viburnum can be stored not only for the winter, but also for up to six months.

Other storage methods

When it is not possible to keep the viburnum berries fresh, you can resort to other methods. There are several popular options for storing viburnum without compromising its beneficial properties.

Frozen storage. Viburnum berries are cut off from bunches, packed in portioned packages, and then sent to the freezer for the whole winter. Such viburnum can be easily obtained at first desire, and used for its intended purpose - to make tea, fruit drink or vitamin compote. As we have already found out, frost has a beneficial effect on the taste of berries, so your dishes will not suffer, but will only benefit.

Dried viburnum. To prepare dried viburnum for the winter, it is pre-washed, placed on a baking sheet lined with parchment and sent to a slightly heated (up to 60 degrees) oven without closing the door. If you have nowhere to rush, you can dry the berries on the street: for this, you should choose a shaded place and place clusters of viburnum there on textile napkins, or you can simply tie the bunches in bunches and hang them. When the viburnum is completely dry, it is carefully torn off and stored in a tightly sealed container (or fabric bags).

Viburnum juice. This method will require some effort: for one serving of juice, you will need 2 kg of berries, 500 g of water and 200 g of granulated sugar for each liter of berry juice. Boil clean berries for several minutes, squeeze and mix the resulting liquid with the rest of the ingredients.All this must be brought to a boil and poured into pre-sterilized jars. Sealed containers with ready-made juice are sent to a cold place for the winter.

Viburnum jam is made from the same set of products as juice, only using a different technology. Berries (1 kg) are washed, blanched in boiling water, poured with syrup (300 ml of water and 1.3 kg of granulated sugar) and left to infuse for 12 hours. Next, the prepared mass is placed on low heat and boiled for 30 minutes until thickened. The finished jam is laid out in sterilized jars, stored in a cool place.

Viburnum rubbed with sugar is a very simple recipe that allows you to preserve the properties, taste and aroma of viburnum for the whole winter. The berries are simply ground with sugar in equal proportions, are pasteurized for 30 minutes and, having sealed, are sent to be stored in a cool place.

Viburnum vitamin syrup is prepared from viburnum juice (we described the process of its preparation above). It is mixed with sugar in a 1: 2 ratio (1 part juice and 2 parts granulated sugar), add a pinch of citric acid and cook until the sugar is completely dissolved. Store such a product in sealed bottles.

Pastila is not a very traditional way to prepare viburnum for the winter. Blanched berries (1 kg) are poured with water (250 ml), boiled over low heat until soft. The resulting mass must be grated through a sieve, mixed with sugar (1 kg), then boiled over low heat until the consistency of thin sour cream. The mass prepared in this way is poured in a thin layer onto a baking sheet, previously lined with baking paper, and sent to the oven with a temperature of 50-60 degrees. You can tell if the marshmallow is ready by how easily it leaves the parchment. The finished dish is rolled up, cut into portions, sprinkled with powdered sugar and put in cardboard boxes, sent to storage in a cool room with good ventilation.

Kalina with sugar. To cope with such a preparation, you need to stock up on powdered sugar (200 g), starch (no more than 5 g will be needed), viburnum berries (1 kg). The pre-washed viburnum is sprinkled with sugar mixed with starch, and sent to dry for 12 hours in a slightly warm oven. The finished sugar viburnum is laid out in jars and stored under lids in a cool place.

Fruit drink - is more of a vitamin cocktail than an independent preparation, because it is made from viburnum juice. The recipe is extremely simple: 0.5 liters of juice is diluted with 2 liters of water, adding 250 g of sugar, and brought to a boil. When the granulated sugar is completely dissolved, the fruit drink is turned off, insisted for several hours. Of course, you cannot keep such a drink for the whole winter, but it is quite capable of supporting the body with vitamins and useful microelements in the cold.

These are not all the ways in which you can preserve priceless berries: there are many recipes for jam or jam from viburnum with other components (honey, mountain ash, citrus fruits), which only enhance the beneficial properties of viburnum. But this is more reminiscent of confectionery delights, which we will definitely talk about in the following articles.

Video "Billets from viburnum"

The author of this video shows how he makes the viburnum blanks for future use: marmalade, fillings for pie and fruit drink.