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Chokeberry berries are used to make homemade wine and liqueurs, they are dried for the winter for medicinal purposes, and jams, compotes and jams are prepared. But all this requires berries of different ripeness, so it is important to know under what conditions and when to collect chokeberry.

Chokeberry or chokeberry is not only an ornamental shrub in our gardens and plots. Closer to autumn, the harvest of berries begins to ripen, which, if not removed, can remain on the branches until spring. This is where the question arises: at what time are the berries considered ripe, and at what time should they be picked?

By autumn, the berry harvest begins to ripen.

Exact recommendations for harvesting times depend on the purpose of the collected berries and the purposes for their use. Chokeberry does not have a delightful aroma or appetizing taste, but this berry is very healthy and even medicinal. It is effectively used in cooking in the preparation of desserts and baked goods, added to sauces, and included in fruit juices and jams.

The slightly tart taste of rowan fruits adds refined notes to many dishes and drinks. In addition, chokeberry is a recognized medicinal product in folk and traditional medicine. It has anti-inflammatory, choleretic and diuretic effects, reduces allergic symptoms, and helps with high blood pressure. Its use helps remove radionuclides from the body and heavy metals. And in order to take full advantage of these taste and medicinal properties, you need to harvest the crop on time and use it correctly.

Advice! To collect berries, use only enamel, glass or plastic dishes, since containers made of galvanized steel or aluminum negatively affect the taste of the fruit.

To collect berries, use only enamel, glass or plastic dishes.

This method of harvesting is much more productive than if you remove each berry separately.

Collecting chokeberry in the following way– use pruning shears or scissors to cut off the umbrella inflorescences as a whole branch, and then, if necessary, separate the berries from the stalks (you don’t have to sort them out if the raw materials are being prepared for wine). This method of harvesting is much more productive than if you remove each berry separately. In addition, a tree freed from brushes recovers faster, and berries missed during normal harvesting and left for the winter can become a breeding ground for infections in the spring. The harvested crop must be immediately processed in order to preserve the maximum useful substances.

From chokeberry prepare one-component jams and compotes or include them in assorted fruits and berries. The berries begin to take on color already in August, but their taste is very tart and astringent. Ripening continues until the end of September and by this time the fruits become much juicier and sweeter, but still there is astringency in them. If you plan to add berries to add color, for example, to apple or pear compotes, then they can be collected in early autumn, without waiting for full ripening. A handful of dense, black rowan berries will decorate bright zucchini or melon jam and give them a special piquant taste.

Chokeberry jam

Compote of apples and chokeberries

If you are planning one-component preparations from chokeberry, then you should delay harvesting and leave it until the first frost. IN middle lane This period occurs in October, when the nighttime drop in temperature softens the taste of the berries, makes them even juicier, sweeter, and the astringency almost disappears. It’s worth trying a few berries to decide whether they are already suitable for preparations or whether you can still leave them to “ripen” in the freezer.

Here is one recipe for healthy, aromatic and vitamin-rich chokeberry and lemon jam.

Ingredients:

sorted chokeberry berries – 1 kg;
sugar – 1.2 kg;
lemon – 2 pcs;
water – 0.5 l.

Bring the water to a boil, add a glass of sugar. After boiling, add a glass of berries, as soon as it boils again - again a glass of sugar and so on until everything is over. At the end, add chopped lemon, cut into cubes along with the peel and boil everything, stirring, for another five minutes. The finished jam is laid out in sterile jars, distributed hermetically in the syrup, sealed and left upside down until completely cooled. The advantage of this method of preparation is that the consistency of the resulting jam will be homogeneous.

After adding the lemon, boil everything, stirring, for another five minutes.

Collection of chokeberries for drying and liqueurs

Properly dried rowan berries are stored for a long time in room conditions. They are used as a remedy for daily consumption, and also in winter for preparing various drinks or as a filling for pies.

Dried chokeberry (chokeberry)

In winter, dried berries are used to prepare various drinks.

Dried rowan berries are used as a filling for pies

For drying, only well-ripened fruits are taken, preferably after frost, so that the berries lose their astringency and become sweet. Rowan berries are dried in the sun, in the oven, in a special dryer, and even in the microwave. It doesn’t matter which method you choose, but the main thing in this process is a low temperature so that the berries do not bake, but dry out gradually, retaining all the useful substances.

By the end of October, when the berries become juicy and soft, you can begin collecting raw materials for making homemade wine. Experienced housewives recommend harvesting after rain, which not only washes away dust and debris, but also knocks down bad berries - dry or spoiled. Don't wait for a noticeable drop in autumn temperatures. Frozen fruits are not suitable for wine, because they initially contain a lot of tannins that interfere with fermentation, and freezing further reduces the activity of these processes.

I would like to tell a lot about the brown-eyed sister of the common red rowan - chokeberry. She came from North America and quickly won our sympathy. First of all, your unusual appearance, taste, resistance to diseases, pests and frost.

I.V. Michurin gave her a start in life in our country, creating interspecific hybrid with mountain ash back in the war years in Altai. Then people began to wonder: when to collect, how to collect, what is useful. Before this, chokeberry was grown as an ornamental shrub.

Typically, chokeberry grows as a spreading bush up to two to two and a half meters high; it loves moist, well-lit places. this guarantees good harvest. It begins to bear fruit early, at 3-4 years. It reproduces by dividing the bush, by root shoots. The survival rate is good.

When a bush becomes sloppy due to a large number of trunks, the older ones must be cut out at soil level. It is better to do this in early spring.

I feed my “chokeberry” little and often forget about it until the fall, when it’s time to collect it. I usually wait for September 15th, but it all depends on the weather, what kind of summer it was. For example, this fall, chokeberry ripened by the beginning of September and turned out to be sweet with a slight tartness. It usually happens like this after the first frost, but here... Maybe the two-week drought took its toll and the bush was not watered in time? Gradually the berries began to wilt right on the bush. Those who wanted to make jam should hardly wait for this.

If you decide to just keep the chokeberry longer, you can leave it on the branches until October, and then collect it directly with the shields, move it to a cool place. In boxes, lined with dry moss, it can lie all winter. Why does this make sense? - yes, because chokeberry has a lot of benefits. Even the word “aronia” translated from Greek means “help.”

Chokeberry contains a lot of B vitamins, ascorbic acid, vitamins E and K. But the main thing is the huge content of vitamin P, which strengthens the walls of blood vessels and reduces their permeability. Daily dose This vitamin is contained in only a dozen juicy, tart berries. By January, the amount of vitamin P will be halved, but this only means that you need to eat more berries.

There are two “buts” here: you must observe the measure if you have gastritis and increased blood clotting.

Chokeberry is also rich in iodine, iron, molybdenum, copper, and manganese. For people living in central Russia, this is very important. It is thanks to the high iodine content that rowan berries improve the functioning of the thyroid gland.
They are used for prevention, treatment high blood pressure, improve digestion, are a choleretic agent.

Every year I cook from black rowan and Antonov apples jam. It is very tasty, beautiful, healthy. It looks exotic, especially if at the end of cooking you add pieces of peeled walnut. Pieces of apples and nuts are soaked in the cherry blossom of the chokeberry - great! To make jam, the berries need to be picked early, in early to mid-September.

You can prepare raw honey jam for tea: mince black rowan, mix with honey in equal quantities - that’s where the benefits come from!

But remember - good things - two teaspoons, or three! The natural astringency of rowan itself warns us and limits the amount of one-time intake.

Due to its wide distribution, rowan is perceived by many as a low-value and not very healthy berry. Meanwhile, its unsurpassed healing properties were well known to our ancestors, who paid great attention harvesting this berry. Today we will learn some simple recipes.

Since ancient times, magicians and sorcerers have used rowan to perform various rituals. Rowan groves were considered a sacred place, and damaging them was considered an unthinkable blasphemy. Sorcerers used rowan to cure many ailments, and housewives did not miss the opportunity to pamper their households with a variety of delicacies made from this berry.

How to collect rowan?

There are two stages of collection – consumer and collection. The harvesting stage begins in September, when the berries acquire the color and size characteristic of the variety. Without being exposed to cold, they have low taste qualities(the fruits are quite bitter), but they are excellent for long-term fresh storage (the rowan shields are hung in a cool room). The consumer stage begins in November, after the first frost. By this time, the bitterness has mostly gone away, and the berries acquire a pleasant sweetish taste. During this period of time, rowan is very easily separated from the stalks and becomes more juicy. Unfortunately, berries collected at this time cannot be stored fresh - they quickly lose their juice and spoil. But you can make various preparations from frozen rowan.

During the picking process, they try to protect the berries from mechanical damage. During the harvesting period, rowan trees are plucked along with shields, on which the berries are located (with the exception of chokeberry), but in November the most justified is to collect the berries themselves (they are easily separated from the mother plant and fall off).

Rowan is harvested in dry weather, preferably in the morning (at this time the berries are of greatest value). The harvest is stored in shallow baskets and boxes.

Dried rowan

The rowan is sorted, washed, allowed to dry, laid out on baking sheets in one layer and placed in the oven, heated to a temperature of 70-75º C (some housewives reduce the drying temperature to 40-60 º C). The rowan is carefully mixed and the process is completed at the moment when the berries stop sticking together when squeezed in the palm of your hand. Flour is often made from dry berries by adding it to various dishes and baked goods.

Dried rowan

For the syrup:

Sugar – 400 g
Water – 350 ml

Berries that have been exposed to cold are most suitable for this harvesting method. They are poured with boiling water for 3-4 minutes, after which soaked in cold water for 12 hours (changing it several times). The dried berries are sprinkled with sugar (250 g), kept at room temperature for 20 hours, the resulting juice is drained and sugar is added again(250 g). After 20 hours, the juice is drained and the berries are poured hot sugar syrup , heat to 85 º C and leave on fire for exactly 7 minutes. The cooled mass is filtered, the berries are placed on a baking sheet and dried at a temperature of 65-70°C (twice for 25-30 minutes). The cooled berries are placed in a sieve and dried for about six hours at a temperature of 30°C. The finished product is stored in glass containers.

Frozen rowan

The rowan is washed, allowed to dry from moisture, placed in containers or bags, closed (sealed, tied) and frozen. After freezing, the taste of the berries noticeably improves, and the amount of carotene even increases slightly.

Rowan juice

Sugar – 500 g
Water – 1 l
Rowan – 1 kg

Pour clean berries with water, cook until softened, rub through a sieve, add granulated sugar, boil and pour into jars. The finished product is sealed and wrapped for self-sterilization.

Rowan jam

Sugar – 1.5 kg
Water – 2 tbsp.
Rowan – 1 kg

The sorted and thoroughly washed berries are placed in chilled syrup, let stand for 24 hours, after which they are strained. The syrup is brought to a boil, the berries are dipped into it again and cooked until fully cooked. The jam is placed in jars and sealed.

Rowan pastila

Sugar – 2 kg
Powdered sugar – 2 tbsp.
Rowan – 1 kg

The berries are boiled for 10 minutes, strain and grind through a sieve. Sugar is added to the puree, mixed well, boiled to the consistency of thick sour cream and spread on greased with vegetable oil. wooden planks. dried under sun rays or in the oven, cut into pieces, sprinkle with powdered sugar and store in a cardboard box.

Rowan jam

Sugar – 500 g
Water – 1 tbsp.
Rowan – 1 kg

Pure rowan berries are boiled in a small amount of water, wiped and boil with sugar until thick. The finished product is placed in prepared jars and rolled up.

Soaked rowan

Sugar – 1 tbsp.
Water – 1 l
Salt – 5 g
Cinnamon – 1 g
Cloves – 0.5 g

Prepared rowan berries are placed in an enamel container (bucket, jar, tub), poured with boiled and cooled filling and left for 2-3 days at room temperature for fermentation (some add apples cut in half and freed from the seed box to the rowan). The finished product is stored in the cellar and served with vegetable, cereal and meat dishes.

Pickled rowan

Sugar – 1 kg
Water – 1.5 l
Vinegar 9% (per 1 jar) – 25 ml

Rowan berries are blanched in boiling water for a couple of minutes, placed in jars, poured with syrup, vinegar and any spices are added. Pickled rowan must be pasteurized (0.5 and 1 liter - 20 and 25 minutes, respectively).

Rowan tincture

Vodka – 2 l
Rowan – 1 kg
Sugar - to taste

The rowan is placed in a bottle, filled with vodka, and allowed to stand for 3 months in a warm room or in the sun. After this, the tincture is filtered, diluted with syrup, poured into bottles and tightly capped.

Not everyone likes the taste of fresh rowan, but preparations containing this berry are always popular. We hope you will also like them.

Berries are a source of a huge amount of various beneficial substances and vitamins necessary for human health. One of them is chokeberry, not the most famous, but extremely useful.

Ripening time

Unlike its other relatives, chokeberry, also known scientifically as chokeberry, ripens in the fall. It has been scientifically established that the main ripening period is the end of September or the beginning of October. Despite the fact that your dark color The berries are obtained at the end of summer; the maximum benefit from them can be obtained only in the fall.

The main sign that the chokeberry has ripened and become suitable for consumption and harvesting is the dark ruby-colored juice released by the berry when lightly pressed on it.

Most often, this level of ripeness is observed after the first frost has passed.

Berry composition

Chokeberry contains unusual a large number of a substance called rutin. The content of this substance in chokeberry is twice as high as in currant fruits.

Its main benefit is that its use stops the aging process of the body.

In addition to vitamin P, which enters the human body only through nutrition (i.e. with food), chokeberry is rich in the following substances:

B vitamins: B1, B2, B6.
Vitamins C, E, K.
Micro- and macroelements, including iron, iodine, manganese, boron, copper, etc.
Glucose, sucrose, fructose.
Substances of tanning and pectin groups.
Folic and nicotinic acids.

This composition suggests that chokeberry is indeed extremely healthy berry. And the time of its maturation makes it an excellent remedy for hypovitaminosis.

Impact on the body

The benefits of each product are measured by the effect it has on the human body. In this regard, chokeberry, or black rowan, can easily occupy a leading position, overtaking numerous varieties of many other crops.

You can use chokeberry to improve your health:

Normalization of cholesterol levels in the blood.
Removing toxins from the intestines naturally.
Fight hypertension.
Providing therapeutic effects on the body with atherosclerosis.
Strengthening effect on the walls of blood vessels.
Strengthening the immune system.
Treatment of radiation sickness.
Therapy of pathogenic processes affecting the thyroid gland.
Treatment of Graves' disease and thyrotoxicosis.
Increased stomach acidity.
Treatment of problems associated with blood clotting processes.
Removing from the body substances with radioactive effects and substances from the group of heavy metals.
Combating the development of pathogenic processes from the oncological group.
Regulating the processes of the gastrointestinal tract.
Activation of liver function.
Reducing emotional instability.
Regulation of brain processes responsible for the state of inhibition and excitation.

The healing effects of chokeberry on the body are due to various substances that are part of chokeberry.

Correct use of this product contributes to the complete recovery of the body without complex medical intervention and serious consequences.

Suitability of the berry

It is worth remembering that correctly selected chokeberry will fully reveal its taste and healing properties. Therefore, the choice of product should be given special attention.

When choosing berries, first of all pay attention to their appearance. Damaged, wrinkled or slightly rotten berries are not suitable for consumption. The size of the fruit should not be too small, and the surface should be shiny. It is also worth paying attention to the hardness of the fruit. The most suitable berries should not be completely hard and should respond to a gentle squeeze with your fingers.

Chokeberry is harvested or purchased after the first frost has passed. During this period, all the richness of her taste is fully revealed.

Benefit for health

In order to get the maximum benefit from a product, it is important not only to choose it correctly, but also to eat it correctly. Chokeberry is no exception to the rule.

While the season lasts, it is worth eating fresh rowan. In this way, a person fills his body with vitamins for the winter period. It is also possible to consume these extremely healthy black berries in the form of mousses or juices.

It is possible to prepare chokeberry for future use. To preserve chokeberry fruits for the winter without loss medicinal properties, it is best to dry them. You should not freeze: frost destroys valuable tannins.

Popular recipes

Exist various ways preparing rowan berries. The recipes are quite simple, and the resulting beneficial effect has a strengthening effect on the body and improves health.

Rowan mousse

Making chokeberry mousse is very simple. To do this you need to do the following:

Grind the fruits in a food processor or crush them using a masher.
Add a small amount of natural yogurt and any berries or fruits (banana, strawberries, etc.).
Beat the resulting mixture.

This mousse is not only healthy, but also extremely tasty. As a supplement, you can use any fruit or berries, depending on the person’s desire. To prepare the mousse, you can use fruits not only freshly picked or purchased, but also those that have been previously frozen.

General strengthening decoction

Another easy-to-prepare and extremely healthy drink made from chokeberry. Its regular use helps strengthen general state health and feel beneficial features these unusual fruits given by nature in the autumn.

The decoction is prepared as follows:

200 g of dried berries pour 200 ml of boiling water;
cook over very low heat for 10 minutes;
leave for 20 minutes;
squeeze the fruits and strain the broth.

Drink this decoction three times a day, taking 0.5 cups. Due to its simplicity, this recipe has become the most widespread and famous.

Jam

When consuming jam, you should understand that at this moment an additional amount of carbohydrates enters the body. However, you can get the maximum benefit from this, if you do not show excessive zeal, everything is good in moderation. IN winter time drinking tea with chokeberry jam will improve your health and allow you to have a good time.

This jam is prepared as follows:

Blanch 700 grams of fruit in water brought to a boil for no more than 5 minutes.
Mix 2.5 cups of water used earlier with one cup of sugar and boil the syrup.
Add prepared chokeberry and other berries or fruits (raspberries, plums, apples or chopped orange peels) to the boiled syrup.
Bring the mixture to a boil, remove from heat and leave for 8 hours.
Repeat the boiling and infusion procedure.
Bring to a boil again, simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.
Distribute the finished product into jars and roll up in the standard way.

Using other fruits and berries will soften the slightly tart taste of chokeberry and complement the range of beneficial effects.

This jam is a wonderful combination of taste and benefits.

Tinctures

Alcohol tinctures based on chokeberry are another direction in which you can use the entire range of beneficial substances hidden in these black berries. Adding infusions to tea will achieve a tonic effect and help you warm up on a cold winter day.

Tincture with cloves

One of the most famous recipes. The tandem of chokeberry and cloves gives the tincture a rather original taste and aroma, without reducing the beneficial properties of the fruit.

It is prepared as follows:

Gently chop 1 kg of berries using a wooden masher.
Add 0.5 kg of sugar and 3 buds of cloves to the fruits, mix the mixture thoroughly.
Cover the jar with the mixture with gauze and leave for several days at room temperature.
After this, pour 1 liter of alcohol into the mixture and close the jar with a plastic lid.
Store the jar of tincture in a dark place for two months.
Distribute the tincture into containers, after straining.

This tincture is stored in a cool place. It is recommended for adults to use it by adding a small amount to tea.

Tincture with honey and oak bark

Chokeberry-based tincture can be prepared not only with spices. The second known recipe involves adding oak bark and honey to rowan fruits.

The algorithm for preparing such a tonic is as follows:

Pour 2.5 cups of berries into a jar, after washing them first.
Add 3 tablespoons of honey and a pinch of washed oak bark.
Pour all 1 liter of vodka.
Leave the jar in a dark place for 4-5 months.

During this time, the jar is sometimes taken out of storage, its contents are shaken, and then put back. After the allotted time has passed, the tincture is filtered through several layers of gauze and bottled. In this form, the tincture is ready for use.

Medicinal properties

The medicinal properties of chokeberry can improve health in the following diseases:

Hypertension. Thanks to the diuretic effect of chokeberry, blood pressure is reduced.

Inflammatory processes in the body. Chokeberry contains anthocyanins, which can help with infectious diseases bacterial etiology.

Atherosclerosis. The flavonoids and vitamins C, E and A contained in chokeberry strengthen the walls of blood vessels.
Hypoacid gastritis. Aronia fruits increase the acidity of gastric juice.
Nervousness and sleep disturbances. Chokeberry berries act as a natural sedative and reduce excitability.
Diarrhea. Chokeberry normalizes digestion in case of indigestion, since tannins have an astringent effect.
Toxicoses of pregnant women. The hepatoprotective effect of chokeberry fruits alleviates toxicosis and helps cope with nausea.
Eye diseases. Vitamin A, which is part of chokeberry, normalizes many processes. The berry is especially useful for “senile eyes”. It reduces the risk of glaucoma and cataracts.

Contraindications

The benefits of chokeberry are obvious, but there are also contraindications:

thrombosis;
peptic ulcer of the stomach and intestines;
colitis, constipation;
hyperacid gastritis;
hypotension.

Before consuming chokeberry, consult your doctor. This will allow you to get the maximum benefit and prevent the aggravation of existing diseases and problems.

Storage methods

As mentioned earlier, the fruits of this plant can be harvested for future use for winter period. There are several ways to do this.

Method 1

Freezing berries. Frozen fruits can be used to make jams or mousses. You can also defrost some berries and eat them. It is worth considering that with this storage method a certain amount of vitamin P is lost, but most of all beneficial properties are preserved.

Method 2

Drying. With this preparation, all the benefits of the berries are preserved. For proper drying, you can not separate the fruits from the shield, but hang them together on a rope or wire. Such tapes are placed in a dry place, where it is often cool. In this form, chokeberries are also stored during frosts. With this method, all the beneficial properties of the berries are preserved.

Method 3

You can store the fruits of this crop in dried form. In order to wilt chokeberries, washed and dried fruits are placed on trays or surfaces with a fine grid and left in the sun or open air.

Method 4

Another drying method is to use the oven. The fruits are laid out on a baking sheet and dried at a temperature of 40 degrees for 20–30 minutes.

Afterwards, the temperature is raised to 60 degrees and the berries are left in the oven for another 5–10 minutes.

You only need to increase the temperature when the juice stops coming out of the berries. As a result of drying, the fruits should not lose their color. The preserved color of the berries indicates that the beneficial properties of the chokeberry were not lost as a result of heat treatment.

Conclusion

Chokeberry, or chokeberry, is an extremely useful plant. Eating its fruits can help solve many health problems and maintain the overall tone of the body. Proper storage and use of this product helps a person cope with many diseases.

Aronia chokeberry, colloquially called chokeberry, belongs to the rose family. This unpretentious shrub with a height of 2 m to 4 m can be found on many personal plots, but most often it is grown exclusively for decorative purposes.

Nutritional and medicinal value of chokeberry

Not all gardeners appreciate the small, tart blue-black berries. But they are beautiful medicine, which helps strengthen blood vessels and lower blood pressure.

The composition of chokeberry fruits contains a whole range of essential for human body vitamins, the main of which are P, E, PP, carotene, ascorbic acid, B vitamins.
Chokeberry can successfully replace sugar for patients diabetes mellitus due to the presence of sorbitol (or glucite) in the berries. This hexahydric alcohol is often used as a sweetener in diet foods and beverages.
The berries are rich in a variety of microelements, the main ones being iodine compounds, fluorine and boron. Copper and iron, molybdenum and manganese are also present in sufficient concentrations.
The fruits have a tart taste due to the presence of tannins in their pulp, and the pectins they contain contribute to gelling confectionery of them.

In addition, chokeberry is perfect for drying and freezing, while maintaining its medicinal and nutritional value.

Fresh fruits are an excellent basis for many culinary experiments. They add a special taste to jams, preserves and compotes. Fruit juice, which contains chokeberry, is very useful. Many craftsmen prepare excellent liqueurs based on the tart berry. It adds original notes to various sauces and meat dishes.

What time should I choose for harvesting?

The rich palette of uses for chokeberry suggests a varied approach to its collection. The berries acquire the characteristic black color of the species by the end of summer, but this does not yet indicate their absolute ripeness. Depending on what kind of processing is planned in the future, the timing of harvesting should be chosen.

If you plan to use chokeberry as a color accent in compotes, jams or preserves made from other fruits and berries, then you can start harvesting the fruits in late August - early September. During this period, their taste leaves much to be desired: the berries still lack real sweetness and juiciness, and the taste is too astringent. However, thanks to chokeberry, pear or apple compotes and jams will acquire an attractive color and bright flavor notes.
If you want to make jelly or compote exclusively from chokeberry, you should wait until it is fully ripe. The berries become truly sweet and juicy by mid-autumn. To get rid of most of the tannins that give the astringency culinary masterpieces, it is better to pick berries after the first frost.
For drying and freezing fresh, it is also better to collect fruits already frozen. After hypothermia, almost all astringency disappears from the berries, and the taste becomes sweeter and richer.
If you plan to cook with chokeberry Home wine, you need to wait until it is absolutely ripe. The berries should become very juicy and soft to the touch. However, you should not wait until frost sets in. Low temperatures significantly reduce the tendency of berry juice to ferment, which prevents the production of full-fledged wine.

How to harvest correctly?

The quality of raw materials has a significant impact the right technology its collection. To ensure that the berries do not lose their presentation and original taste, you should use a few little tricks when preparing them.

Always harvest only in dry weather. If the day before passed heavy rain, wait for the bush to be blown properly by the breeze. For the same reason, you should not start cleaning early in the morning, when the brushes are still covered with dew.
It is better to use only plastic or glass containers for collection. You can take an enamel container, but under no circumstances should you collect the “chokeberry” in aluminum or galvanized buckets and pans, as they will irreparably spoil the taste of the crop.
To simplify and speed up the picking process, the berries from the bush are not picked individually, but cut off as whole umbrellas. If necessary, they can be separated from the stalks in a more comfortable home environment.
To cut brushes, always use a high-quality and well-sharpened tool (scissors or pruners). This way you will protect the plant from unnecessary damage.
The whole umbrella collection has another positive side: this has a beneficial effect on the overall well-being of the shrub. A tree completely freed from berries quickly gains strength, and individual missed fruits in the spring will not become a source of disease.

Methods for storing chokeberry

In addition to preparing compotes, jams and wine, berries can be preserved in three ways: dried, frozen and left fresh.

Fresh fruits are stored for the shortest time. For storage, choose a cool room with optimal temperature in the range from 0 °C to +5 °C. The entire bunches are placed in one layer in wooden boxes or hung on a stretched rope. In this form, the fruits retain their freshness and all vitamins for 2 months. With more high temperatures The shelf life does not exceed 3 days.
The berries last much longer when frozen. The main condition for proper freezing is the absolute dryness of the raw materials. Rowan berries packaged in small plastic containers will not lose their taste for 6-9 months.
Dried fruits have a really long shelf life. They are able to retain their properties for 1-2 years if prepared correctly, that is, slowly dried in an oven or special dryer at a temperature not exceeding +60 ° C. It is very important not to overdry the raw materials! This fact is evidenced by the brownish or reddish tint of the berries.

Sealed glass containers are best suited for storing dried chokeberries. You can also use ventilated containers such as canvas bags or cardboard boxes. The place should be dark, dry and cool.