Fermented Cranberries

One of the newest adventures I’ve been dabbling in for 2019 has been storing food with probiotics. We have been trying to improve our gut health this past year, so naturally moving towards fermenting our own food was on the menu. Now we have successfully made yogurt at home, and I’ve always got a batch of kombucha brewing but I wanted to add some more variations.

My first several attempts at lactofermentation failed horribly. I managed to botch some of the easiest recipes. Dilly beans, sauerkraut, more sauerkraut, spicy squash… I finally had some small success with a garden kimchi variation that was just enough to keep my hopes up!

When we harvested our honey this past fall, a recipe from Grow Forage Cook Ferment went through my Facebook feed and I knew I HAD to try it! Per the usual, I couldn’t just try a small batch for my first attempt. I ran to the store and picked up three bags of organic cranberries to try that night, enough for three quarts! (I also tried honey fermented garlic, but that’s for another post!)

The recipe from Grow Forage Cook Ferment is wonderful! I’m just going to jot down some helpful tips I found along the way.

I was pleasantly surprised to find organic cranberries at our local Walmart for about $4 a bag! For reference, one bag fits almost completely in a quart jar.

Make sure to rinse your berries and pat dry. Cranberries can take awhile to break down, so to encourage the process, you will want to bruise them or cut them in half. I chose to put them in a bowl and use a meat smasher. Bonus: it works well to get out any pent up frustration!

Use a strainer when you’re juicing your orange, to catch any seeds or debris.

I used the plastic lids for canning jars, kept loosely tightened while they sat on the counter. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see any bubbles the first few weeks, It took a solid 3 weeks of daily stirring before we saw any bubbles forming.

I let them ferment another 2 weeks before moving them into the fridge and starting to use them.

Sweet Christmas! They turned out absolutely fabulous! The honey gains a beautiful red hue as time goes on, and becomes more liquidy. The flavor becomes super enhanced from the berries, and a little drizzled over biscuits or fruit bread goes a long way! (Oh, and the bonus of probiotics is nice, too!) The berries that haven’t fully wrinkled give a delightful “pop!” with a hint of carbonation when you eat them!

For next time:

I’m going to add a little more spices for my next batch. These were unbelievably delicious, but I would like a little more Christmas spices flavor for this time of year. Perhaps an extra cinnamon stick, more ginger, and I’ve thought about adding either clove or cardamon.