How to freeze and store fruit at home without icing?

First, let's see what it's like to store raspberries, this fantastic fruit, in the traditional way, in a plain food container or, even worse, in a plastic bag.

frozen raspberry icing

frozen raspberry icing

 

The initially healthy, beautiful-textured raspberry is frozen but becomes slushy and almost runny after thawing.

It is even worse if, during prolonged storage, it is already surrounded by ice saturated with the smell of roasted or stuffed cabbage in the freezer.

So don't freeze this way!

But we also show the solution.

Many methods and options have been invented for the long-term storage of fruits. But since vitamins, especially vitamin C, decompose at 60 °C, freezing is the most generous storage from this point of view.

From the point of view of freezing, we distinguish three fruit categories.

 

  1. cannot be frozen: fruits that cannot be frozen due to their texture, e.g. pears, peaches, gooseberries, grapes, nectarines, etc., usually juicy fruits
  2. can be frozen with care: fruits with a soft texture that can be frozen well. Due to their delicate structure, they require special care when freezing and thawing. These are, for example, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, currants, elderberries, rhubarb, gooseberries or mint, sea buckthorn, plum, cranberry and berries.
  3. excellent for freezing: fruits that can be frozen well in all respects, such as e.g. the cherry. Among the forest fruits that should be listed here are catfish, rosehips, gorse, hawthorn, rowanberry, and wild blackberry.

     

    We are now writing a few thoughts about the 2nd group.

     

    Melting of frozen blackberries and raspberries

    Anyone knows how fantastic it is to take frozen raspberries out in the winter and enjoy the almost summer-quality fruit.

    However, it must be frozen carefully, as it is incredibly fragile. Many people recommend that you first freeze the berries in a row on a tray and then put the already frozen raspberries in a bag.

     

    Well, there are better solutions!

    During freezing, when packing in the bag, condensation occurs on the surface of the frozen fruits.  And after many months in the bag, it freezes, and when it is thawed, it, unfortunately, becomes watery, thus deteriorating its texture.

    Not to mention that you can also modify the original flavours by interacting with other foods stored in the freezer and the substances released by them - which is facilitated by opening the freezer.

    Vacuum packaging would be evident, but the vacuum bag solution is not recommended because of the above.

    The best solution for this is if the fruit is frozen in mason jars - in this phase, not yet vacuumed, but sealed with the lid - this way, we can achieve that the fruit is not exposed to water, moisture or ice from the beginning.

    When the fruit is frozen, take it out of the freezer for a moment and use the vacuum pump and vacuum jar seal available in our webshop to vacuum the glass.

    This will ensure that the fruit does not ice during prolonged storage. This method is also suitable for extending the shelf life since the life of food in an airtight state increases many times over.

    Remember that fragile berries stored in this way retain their original texture better.

     

    Finally, when you want to eat it in the winter, it is worth defrosting it in a closed state so that the steam does not condense on the surface and get wet.

    If we only want to serve a portion of it, it is still more practical than the vacuum bag solution since the mason jar can be quickly resealed and vacuumed.

    The above storage method is practical for fruits and applies to all vegetables that freeze well, especially legumes, beans, peas, etc.