How to store, dry, freeze and process viburnum at home?

Not everyone knows how to store viburnum at home, although this berry deserves the close attention of those who lead a healthy lifestyle.

How is viburnum useful?

The traditions of its use in Russia for treatment, prevention of diseases and simply for the pleasure of experiencing its refreshing taste go back more than one century. The unique composition containing minerals, vitamins, organic acids and many other useful substances contributes to its wide use:

• to maintain cardiac muscle tone;
• for the treatment of gastrointestinal pathologies;
• for the treatment of skin diseases (lichen, acne);
• for the prevention of atherosclerosis, colds;
• as an additional remedy in the treatment of nervous system disorders.

Knowing how to preserve viburnum at home for the winter, you can use these healing fruits for a long time.

How to properly collect viburnum?

The best time to collect it for preparations for the winter is late autumn, the time after the first frost. It is then that the fruits lose their inherent bitterness and become sweeter. The berries are not picked one at a time, otherwise they will lose their juice. The best way to collect is to cut off the clusters using pruning shears.Brushes can be transported in a fairly thick layer in any container to the recycling site. The skin of the berries is strong enough, and you don’t have to worry about them bursting.

Storing fresh viburnum

At home, you can store berries directly in clusters, placing them in a loosely closed container in the refrigerator or hanging them in any cool room. You don’t have to worry about the product deteriorating or losing its healing properties; this won’t happen for several months.

When storing bunches of berries in an apartment, the lifespan of the product is slightly reduced. If it is not possible to store the berries at low temperatures, it is advisable to process them.

Freezing viburnum

Remaining on the tree, the berries survive the frosty winter quite calmly, if they do not become food for wintering birds. Even viburnum brushes hanging on the balcony can withstand prolonged frosts and retain their taste and beneficial properties after defrosting. In order to extend the life of medicinal berries, you can freeze them by separating them from the cluster along with the stalks.

Advice

There is no need to wash viburnum in order to store it in the freezer; this is done right before use.

Leaving the stalks on will prevent the juice from leaking out when storing the berries. The fruits are placed in bags or plastic containers. If the berries are dry, they will remain crumbly even after freezing. From frozen viburnum you can prepare fruit drinks, compotes, jelly, and medicinal infusions.

Drying viburnum

You can prepare these berries for the winter by drying them in the oven. The brushes are laid out on a baking sheet, the regulator is set at 50–60 ⁰С. The oven door should be slightly open to prevent viburnum juice from leaking out of the bursting berries. The stalks can be removed after drying the berries. Dried viburnum should be stored in dry glass jars, closed with lids.

Advice

Drying is considered complete when the berries become wrinkled.

You can dry berries for the winter in a less intensive way, but simply by laying them out in the open air in the shade. The fruits are laid out on clean white paper, covered with gauze or a thin cloth on top. This drying method requires time and patience; the berries need to be carefully stirred from time to time.

Rub with sugar

To preserve the healing properties of viburnum, this method of preparing it for the winter, such as rubbing the berries with sugar, is perfect. To do this, you need to sort out the berries, separate those that are not of good quality, rinse the fruits in cool water, and dry them.

The following methods are used for grinding:

• rubbing through a sieve;
• blender grinding;
• grinding the mass using a meat grinder.

Advice

There is no need to separate the seeds from the berries, otherwise you will lose the healthy juice. Crushed seeds will not interfere with the use of pureed viburnum.

The crushed mass must be mixed with sugar in a 2:1 ratio, that is, there should be twice as much sugar as berries. It is laid out in sterile jars and stored in the refrigerator or in a cool basement. During long-term storage, juice may separate and fall down the container, but this does not affect the quality of the original product. This method of preparing berries for the winter allows you to preserve all the vitamins in them.

You can store pureed berries by sterilizing in boiling water. Half-liter jars filled with crushed berries and sugar need to be sterilized for 10 minutes, and liter jars - twice as long.The amount of sugar during canning can be reduced by half compared to the previous recipe. After sterilization, the pureed berries are rolled up and stored in a cool place.

Squeezing the juice

By separating the juice from the berries, you can stock up on a healthy product for the winter. The selected fruits are washed, sorted and sent to the juicer. Add sugar to the juice obtained after squeezing and mix. It is mixed in a 1:1 ratio and poured into sterilized containers (jars, bottles). Viburnum juice should only be stored in the refrigerator.

You can replace some of the sugar with honey or use the following recipe to store juice for the winter:

• viburnum berries – 1 kg;
• water – 200 ml;
• honey - to taste.

After squeezing the juice from the viburnum, all ingredients must be mixed, boiled for 10 minutes and stored in a cool place. This preparation can be used to prepare viburnum marshmallow or jam, marmalade, fruit drink, compote.

Making the liqueur

A medicinal liqueur can be prepared from these healthy berries, preserving their healing properties for the winter. It includes:

• viburnum juice – 100 ml;
• water – 100 ml;
• sugar – 100 g;
• vodka – 500 ml.

All components of this recipe need to be moved and kept at room temperature for two days, then seal the liqueur and bottle it. This drink can be stored at any temperature, even room temperature.

Cooking jam, jelly, pastille

You can prepare a lot of sweet viburnum delicacies for the winter. To make jelly, just take a kilogram of berries and sugar and two glasses of water. First, the berries are boiled with water for half an hour. Then sugar is added to this mass and the jelly is cooked for another 45 minutes. All that remains is to put it in jars and roll it up.

To make jam, you need to take 300 ml of water and 1.3 kg of sugar per kilogram of berries.To evenly soak the fruits, they need to stand in hot syrup for 10-12 hours. Then the jam is cooked, removing the foam, and packaged.

A tasty and healthy delicacy - viburnum marshmallow - is made from a kilogram of berries, boiled until soft in a glass of water. The mass, rubbed through a sieve, is mixed with sugar and boiled again until the consistency of a soft dough. This mass should be spread on wooden baking sheets and dried in the oven.

Viburnum oil

For this product, you can use the cake left over from making juice. It is passed through a meat grinder and filled with vegetable or olive oil in a ratio of 1:4 (four times more oil than cake). This remedy should be left in a dark place for three weeks to infuse. After squeezing the cake, it is poured into containers. The value of this undeservedly forgotten recipe is comparable to the benefits and healing properties of sea buckthorn oil.

Making vinegar

The benefits of such a natural product are comparable to the benefits of apple cider vinegar. For viburnum vinegar, you need to put half a kilogram of berries in a three-liter jar, a glass of sugar, and pour two liters of water. You can flavor vinegar with blackcurrant and cherry leaves. This jar should stand in a dark place at room temperature for about two months. During the first week, its contents are stirred periodically. Viburnum vinegar is ready when it becomes transparent.

The availability, ease of storage and preparation of these medicinal fruits make them one of the most common products for use as a health remedy.