Recently, we made a new ‘huckleberry lover’ friend: The Huckleberry Basket!
John contacted me to ask if he could use some of our huckleberry photos for his new website. Of course, a conversation ensued and, once again, I discovered that huckleberry lovers are some of the nicest people!
So, I have dedicated this post to share some of the wonderful information he has on his website:
Picking and Cleaning Huckleberries
… The most basic suggesting for cleaning is pouring the berries out on a cookie sheet, and then pick out the berries by hand. This is a very simple process, however it’s a bit time consuming, and asking friends or family for help will shorten your yield!
Another option is to simply dunk the berries into a bucket filled with water. The berries will sink to the bottom and most of the bugs, stems and leaves will float up to the top. This is a great way to clean out the berries, it’s less time consuming, and does a pretty good job at getting them clean. My only complaint about this is it can waterlog the berries, and if you toss them right into the freezer you will end up with clumps of berries when it comes time to pulling some out.
My favorite is something that requires a bit of ingenuity. This process is almost likesluicing for gold. You take berries and slide them down an incline, and the basic idea is that the berries will roll down the incline and sticks, stems, and leaves will be left behind….
John suggests some good methods for cleaning berries.
How do you clean your berries? If you use a different method, please share it with us!
