Storing sea buckthorn: rules and 10 best ways for the winter at home, timing

Picking berries and preparing for storage

The period for picking berries depends on the purpose for which the gardener grows sea buckthorn. Before frost, the fruit contains the most vitamin C, then its amount decreases in favor of oil.

The berries are difficult to separate from the branches, so you must follow the following collection rules:

If sea buckthorn is transported over long distances, the branches are cut off and then the berries are picked on the spot.
Overripe fruits are trimmed with nail scissors.
The berries are collected starting from the top.
If you need sea buckthorn to make oil, you can place the container under the branch and run your hand over it.
Harvest in dry weather.

The container for storing the harvest is prepared in advance, covered with paper.

How to harvest

In order to store sea buckthorn for a long time, you should decide before harvesting how to use it.
If the fruits are intended for fresh consumption, for making compote or jam, they are removed in September, in the early days, when they have not yet reached full ripeness. At this time, the berry contains vitamin C in large quantities. And the skin and structure are still quite dense, which will prevent the fruits from being damaged during the cooking process.

To make marmalade, jam, or sea buckthorn honey, the fruits do not necessarily need to be selected whole. But they must be ripe and juicy. They will not reach this level of maturity until November.

Harvesting should not occur during rain. Moisture negatively affects the quality of the berries and quickly makes them unusable. For the same reason, before storing fresh sea buckthorn, it is not washed.
You must first collect the fruits located on the upper branches, moving from top to bottom.
To collect sea buckthorn, you should prepare several boxes in advance and cover their bottoms with paper. And when the harvest is harvested, it is sent to a cool place (cellar or refrigerator).

Fresh sea buckthorn can also be stored in bags made of thick polyethylene. In this case, the berries will remain fresh for up to 1 month. Therefore, it would be more correct to process them in such a way as to preserve the beneficial properties of the product as much as possible.

Is it possible to store sea buckthorn on a branch?

To prevent sea buckthorn from becoming sour when harvested, you can pick a twig with the berries stuck to it. For whole fruits, the fresh shelf life is significantly increased.

Conditions for lying down

Branches with sea buckthorn should be kept in a dry, cool place. A basement or refrigerator is suitable for this. The berries can also be separated from the branches, placed in a closed container, which is then placed in a cold room. The fruits are separated carefully, otherwise the likelihood of them rotting increases.

Shelf life of fresh product

At a storage temperature of +3...+4 °C, sea buckthorn does not spoil for 4-5 weeks. It is constantly inspected, since even one spoiled berry can infect all the others with rot. If the fruits are placed in a plastic bag and the air is pumped out of it, the shelf life will increase significantly. Without oxygen, the respiration of berries slows down.

How to make sea buckthorn oil at home

Method 2 - from cake

Squeeze the juice from the sea buckthorn, dry the remaining cake and seeds in the oven (same as above), then grind in a coffee grinder.

Divide the ground cake into three glasses. Fry one of them in a frying pan for 2-3 minutes. Then pour 0.5 liters of oil into an enamel bowl and heat without bringing to a boil. Prepare a dry, clean liter bottle. Pour hot oil into it and pour in the fried cake. Shake and leave for 10 days.

On the 11th day, take out a bottle of oil and strain it, discard the cake. Perform the same operation using the same oil and a second glass of cake (another 10 days), then a third (another 10 days). After 30 days, strain the oil. See the recipe and step-by-step master class here.

Proportions: for 3 cups of cake - approximately 0.5 liters of oil.

Do you use expired food for cooking at home?

Yes, the main thing is to process it if it is meat or expired kefir for pancakes.

26.22%

No, it is very dangerous and not useful.

37.57%

If the products have fungus or mold, then we throw them away; if they are a couple of days past their expiration date, we use them for food, even without heat or other treatment.

36.22%

Voted: 370

Method 1 - from dried berries

First of all, the berries should be washed and then dried in an oven heated to a temperature of 80 degrees (the whole process will take 40-50 minutes). Then, using a coffee grinder, grind the dried berries to a flour (the finer the grind, the better). We will infuse vegetable oil with this “flour”.

Heat vegetable oil (olive, sunflower, etc.) to approximately 30 degrees. Place the ground berries in a glass or ceramic bowl, pour in heated oil, stir and place in a dark place at normal room temperature for 2 days. During this time, a dense dark orange layer forms on top - this is sea buckthorn oil.

Collect the top layer in a separate bowl, mix the remaining oil and leave again to settle. After two to three days, remove the top layer again, leaving the remaining oil again for two to three days. After this period, use gauze to separate the oil from the cake. Mix the oil of the first, second and third collections and pour into a dark glass (or ceramic) bottle.

Proportions: 1 faceted glass of dry berries requires approximately 0.2 liters of oil.

SECRET: why remove the settled oil several times if we still mix what we get together? A dense, bright orange layer that gathers on the surface slows down the settling process, and in this case, the sea buckthorn releases its oil reserves more slowly.

Sea buckthorn berries are tasty and extremely healthy. During the exploration of Siberia, Russian Cossacks in the 17th century used this natural medicine to treat wounds and improve their health. They quickly determined that the fruits and juice of sea buckthorn perfectly restore strength. And if you dry the fruits, pour vegetable oil in a pot and put them in a Russian oven overnight, you can easily get bright orange sea buckthorn oil, which heals even the most severe wounds.

Duration of fruit storage at home

You can store goods in different ways.

Freezing berries

This is one of the popular ways to preserve products. In order to maintain the consistency of the fruits after defrosting, they are quickly frozen. Ice crystals do not have time to form in the pulp, which subsequently leads to rupture of the shell. The procedure is carried out as follows:

the fruits are washed;
spread out in one layer to dry;
placed in the freezer for 24 hours;
poured into containers and stored for long-term storage.

Plastic bags are best suited for containers.

Drying

To dry products in the oven, perform the following steps:

the berries are washed and dried;
preheat the oven to 35-40 °, place sea buckthorn in it, located on baking sheets;
after 3 hours the temperature is increased to 60°.

The dried fruits are left for a day, then poured into jars and covered.

Important! The oven door should not be closed during drying.

Keep in the cold

Fresh sea buckthorn can be preserved in 2 ways:

pick branches with berries from the tree and put them in the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator;
remove the fruits, put them in a plastic bag, pump out the oxygen from it.

In the second method, the safety of fruits increases to 6-7 weeks.

In water

To preserve sea buckthorn in an aquatic environment, clean glass jars are used. The products are placed in them, filled with boiled water, and covered with a tight lid. Store containers with products in a cool place. Only whole, undamaged berries are selected for storage in this way.

In sugar

To preserve the fruits in sugar, they are first washed and dried. Then the sea buckthorn is mixed in a 1:1 ratio with sugar and placed in prepared glass jars. Fill the mixture to ¾ of the volume of the container. The remaining free space is filled with granulated sugar, the jars are closed and placed in the refrigerator.

Strengths of the parties

Swede. the army numbered approx. 26.6 thousand people (of which 24.8 thousand people were in the camp, about 1.8 thousand were downstream of the Vorskla); 41 guns with charges for 34 of them. It was weakened by the defeat at the village. Lesnaya in September/Oct. 1708 a Swede moving towards it from Riga. corps under command. infantry gene. A.L. Levengaupt (only 6.5 thousand people approached the Swedish camp). The Swedes were supposed to be supported by the Cossacks of the Zaporozhye army (up to 3 thousand people, brought into the position of the Swedish army by deception in 1708 by I. S. Mazepa) and the Cossacks allied to the Swedes of the Lower Zaporozhye army (up to 7 thousand people), but some of them was not brought into battle, and others fled at the very beginning of the battle. Ross. the army was superior to the Swedish: approx. 32.6 thousand people infantry, approx. 24.5 thousand people cavalry, approx. 23 thousand people irregular troops (Cossacks - Zaporozhye army under the command of Hetman I. I. Skoropadsky, Don, Terek and Yaik, as well as Kalmyks, Tatars and Vlachs), approx. 300 people with field artillery; 282 guns.

Sea buckthorn preparations for the winter

In addition to the listed methods for storing sea buckthorn, it can be preserved. Juice, jam are prepared from it, soaked, and also oil used to treat various diseases.

Juice

Juice is extracted from sorted and washed sea buckthorn using a juicer. The cake is poured with water so that it just covers it, left for about an hour, and squeezed out. Then the juice and pomace are combined, filtered, and heated to 75 °. The resulting liquid is poured into a glass container, pasteurized at a temperature of 80 °, twisted, and placed in the basement.

Soaked sea buckthorn

Unwashed fruits are placed in sterilized jars and filled with boiled, chilled water. The containers are covered with film or a lid. The jars of soaked berries are moved to the basement or placed in a refrigerator.

Jam recipes

To prepare sea buckthorn jam, follow these steps:

Prepare syrup from 0.5 liters of water and 1.5 kilograms of sugar.
They pour 1 kilogram of berries and leave to infuse for 4 hours.
The syrup is drained, boiled for 15 minutes, then fruits are added to it, and simmered for half an hour over low heat.

The finished jam is poured into glass jars, sealed, and placed in the basement.

Sea buckthorn tincture - the best recipe

Let's delve further and next in line is a tincture of sunny and golden fruits. I want to bring to your attention the simplest recipe for making a drink. The composition does not include anything extra, only the berries themselves, sugar and vodka. Well, you can also add your favorite spices, but this is not necessary.

Ingredients:

Berries – 1 kg;
Vodka – 1.5-2 l;
Water;
Sugar (honey) - to taste.

Cooking method:

Sort out the berries from the garbage and place them in a suitable jar. It is necessary that the fruits fill the container by 2/3.
Fill the container to the top with vodka and place the preparation in a warm place for 2-3 months.
After the specified period, pour the infusion into a bottle, and lightly squeeze the berries and add them to the drink. Place the resulting tincture in the refrigerator for 2 days. And after two days, sea buckthorn oil will appear on the surface, collect it and can use it for medicinal purposes.
Carefully filter the tincture itself through cotton wool. Then dilute with water to the strength you need. Then add sugar or honey to taste. After this, leave the drink in a cool place for a month.

After a month, the tincture is ready for use. If it becomes cloudy, filter it again.