How to Make Cranberry Juice
- Maurice E. Terry
A glass of pure cranberry juice is always heart soothing, thrust removing and healthy alternative of harmful drinks. The brimming, sweet and tart cranberry juice can provide you strength after a long tiring day. You might know the fact that, drinking cranberry juice is very useful in preventing UTI (Urinary Tract Infection). However, this is not the only health benefits you will gain by drinking cranberry. Cranberry is good for lowering the risk of different heart disease. Cranberry also contains powerful phytochemicals which can act as antioxidants to prevent cancer disease.
Cranberries are most appealing water-harvested fruits. They are well packed with nutrients that can boost our health and ward off infections. Because of these health benefits and soothing taste, cranberry juices are becoming more popular than ever. So, if are a cranberry juice lover, you might want to know how to make cranberry juice. You are in the right place. We are here to guide you on how to make cranberry juices!
Why Should You Make Your Own Cranberry Juice?
Because of high health benefits and refreshing taste, cranberry juices have gained more popularity over other juices. The health benefits of cranberry juice are;
- The antioxidants of cranberry juice is well known and proved to fight against free radicals which is associated with age-old diseases, such as cancer, Alzheimer, Parkinson and many more
- The polyphenols of cranberry juice is essential for improving heart health
- Prevents Urinary Tract Infection which is known as UTI
- Beneficial to digestive system if taken proper amount cranberry juice regularly
- Prevents various infections by inhibiting the growth of different bacterial microbes
Unfortunately, it has been found that a lot of manufactures sweetened their cranberry juice with high-fructose corn syrup or sugar and sometimes combine other fruits such as grape or apple and even add color and harmful preservatives.
Rather than making health benefits, these preservatives can cause serious health damage. The added sugar is harmful if taken too much especially for diabetes patients.
So, isn’t there any safe and pure commercially made cranberry available? They are available, but you might find them really expensive. It is also hard to distinguish the pure juices from other juices.
So, what is the solution?
Homemade pure cranberry juice benefits to our health more than commercially made juices and the good news here is cranberry juices are really easy to make, and you will not require any fancy equipment.
It’s been a while I am using a high-speed blender machine to make my cranberry juices, but it is perfectly fine to use a regular blender or stove. Don’t worry; I will show you how!
Making Your Own Homemade Cranberry Juice
Cranberry is evergreen shrub which grows in water and wet areas especially in north-central and northeastern parts of United States. A fresh and pure cranberry juice is full of vitamins and possesses great health benefits. It’s really easy to make cranberry juices, and you can do it without any expensive equipment. There are two ways you can make your sweet cranberry juice; with blender machine and stovetop. Let’s at first see the blender machine version.
Use Your Blender to Make Cranberry Juice
Blender is the most common juicer machine used by most of the people. It is easier to operate and really quick to make most kinds of juices. I have been using my fast blender machine to make cranberry juices. However, this procedure is made using an ordinary blender machine. So, you do not have to worry about not having a fast blender.
Ingredients
- 2 cups of fresh cranberries
- Sugar, honey or another sweetener to make taste (Optional)
- 2 cups of water
- 1 cup of orange or lemon juice (Optional)
Steps to Follow
Follow these below steps to make fresh homemade cranberry juice using your regular blender machine;
Acquire Cranberry And Rinse Them
- Acquire the amount of cranberries based on the amount of juice you want to make. For this recipe to follow, 2 cups will do the job.
- Now rinse the berries. It is very important to rinse them properly before starting to make juice. It will remove the dirt from your cranberries which may cause health problems.
Blend Your Cranberries
- Now pour your cranberries and fresh water into the blender machine. Blend with high speed for 2 to 3 minutes.
- It’s time to check if there is any solid or small piece of cranberries left. If you find any, blend again for a minute or two.
- Now when blending completes, strain the juice through cheesecloth or a mesh sieve
Make It More Tasty, Sweet
- For making taste add the previously made orange or lemon juice.
- Add required amount of sugar or honey to make it sweeter. I personally prefer fresh juice without any sweetener, but it might taste too tangy. So, I suggest you add some sweetener to enjoy the juice.
Serve Your Juice
- Now your juice is ready. You can keep the juice in the fridge if you want to drink it later or want to serve to a friend.
- Remember that you cannot keep your cranberry juice in the freezer more than 2 to 3 weeks
- If it is hot weather, add some ice while drinking or serving your juice. It will make the juice more refreshing to drink.
These are the simple steps you can follow to make cranberry juice with your regular blending machine. For perfectly blending cranberry you can use Vitamix 5300 Blender machine. With its adjustable speed and 2.2 HP motor, you can blend most of the items easily. However, if you have a high-speed blending machine, follow the above steps except for the straining part and enjoy the benefits of the whole cranberry.
Stovetop Version for Homemade Cranberry Juice
Making homemade cranberry juice is really easy, and as mentioned earlier you do not need any fancy equipment. Before buying a blender machine, I used to use a pot on the stove to make my homemade cranberry juice. You can do it too. Follow the below steps to make your homemade cranberry juice using a stove.
Ingredients
- 2 cups of fresh cranberries
- 1 cup of apple or orange chunks (Optional)
- Honey or another sweetener to make taste (Optional)
- 2 cups of water
Steps of Making Cranberry Juice Using Stove
Follow the below steps to make your homemade cranberry juice using your stove:
- Take 2 cups of fresh cranberries and rinse them well to make sure there is no dirt left. If you want to make, more taste adds 1 cup of apple or orange.
- Before adding apple or orange make them chunks so that they can melt easily with the cranberries
- Put them in a mixing bowl and add 2 cups of water in it
Boil the Fruits
- Now put the pot on the stove and start heating until the boiling start
- Lower the heat and let the cranberries simmer for around twenty minutes. By this time, the cranberries should pop make the water bright red.
- Now, stop the heat and pour the mixture into another pot through a clean sieve or cheesecloth
Make It Sweeter
- Add honey or other health friendly sweetener to make your juice sweeter. I personally prefer not to add any sweetener.
- Cranberries are sour fruit, so if you can’t drink it without any sweetener, I recommend you to add pure honey as honey contains a lot of health benefits.
Cool It down and Serve Your Homemade Juice
- Your juice is ready. Before serving the juice, cool it by keeping it in the freezer, or you can add some ice to
- Now you can drink or serve the juice right away or store in the fridge for few days. It is not recommended to keep your homemade cranberry juice in the fridge for more than 2, 3 weeks.
White Cranberry Juice
Like red cranberries, white cranberry juice benefits to our health in a similar way. Above mentioned methods are for making red cranberry juices. However, you can also follow similar steps if you are interested in making white cranberry juice. One thing is to remember that, you do not need to add any sweetener as white cranberries are way less tangy than red cranberries. You can still add sweetener if sweetness is your personal preference.
You know now how to make cranberry juice using two different methods. Among these two methods, I recommend you to use a blender machine. A high-speed blender is more efficient here as it will provide you the benefit of drinking whole cranberry juice. Normal blender will also do the job.
You have to spend more time if you use the stovetop version. Of course, you can make it easier and simple if you use heavy duty die-cast metal built & durable Maytag stove. This stove is heavy duty and built for last. With its 5 sealed burners, you can quickly boil your cranberries. However, both of these methods are very simple, and you will find these methods really easy to make homemade cranberry juices.
Remember, It Is Cranberry Juice, Not Cocktail
You might have seen some cranberry juices labeled with “Cranberry Juice Cocktails.” Well, to be fair cranberry juice and cranberry juice cocktails are slightly different products as they are made with different ingredients using a different procedure. Ours one is the cranberry juice which is also known as “100% Juice”, of course, if you only add other fruits and not any sugar.
Cranberry is a tar fruit. So, a lot of manufactures uses an artificial sweetener such as high-fructose sweet corn syrup which is used in different soft drinks. It sweetens the juice but provides no added nutrition value rather harmful to health. These types of juices are labeled as “Cranberry Juice Cocktails.”
The idea of “100% Juice” is to sweeten the juice with other fruits, like grape, apple, cherry or some other fruits instead of using corn syrup. The name is 100% juice because it uses only juice products not any artificial products to sweeten the juice.
The health benefits of 100% Juice is definitely greater than the cocktails. So, I suggest you choose 100% juice version, not the cocktail one.
Mistakes to Avoid While Making Cranberry Juice
You already know how to make cranberry juice. It’s time to learn about the mistakes. There are always some myths and common mistakes everyone tends to follow. For making cranberry juices, there are few but serious mistakes you should avoid while making your homemade cranberry juice.
- Instead of using fresh cranberries, you might think of using canned cranberry. Well, you can use it, but the fact is that; canned cranberry contains a lot of preservatives. These preservatives are added to keep the cranberries from rotting. For this reason, making juice with canned cranberries will not provide you the taste and health benefits of a fresh juice.
- Another common mistake is to remove the tail and the top of the cranberries before blending them. You do not actually need that, as you will strain the blended juice to remove any left seeds, tops or bottoms.
Remember: Do Not Go over 1 Liter
Cranberry is tar fruit with lots of health benefits. Drinking cranberry juice regularly will lower the risk of different heart disease as well as prevent urinary infections. Cranberries are also good for digestions.
- However, being tar this fruit also contains a lot of acids and acidic property. Sweetened cranberry juices are also high in sugar. So, it is not recommended to take cranberry juice more a liter in a day!
- Drinking too much cranberry juice for a long time may cause some serious health problems. It can cause several side effects which include diarrhea and mild stomach upset. If this habit is prolonged, then you might get kidney stones as well.
- Cranberry also contains salicylic acid which is pretty similar to the aspirin. So, drinking too much cranberry juices will be harmful to those who are allergenic to the aspirin.
- Moreover, you can gain weight by drinking too much sweetened cranberry juices for a long time. The liquid sugar of sweetened cranberry juice can be stored and converted to fat if taken more than 3 to 4 glasses a day.
So, how much one should take cranberry juices for having a refreshing healthy juice?
One or two glass a day will not cause any harm, and you will have the health benefits that come with fresh cranberry!
Conclusion
Pure cranberry juice is both refreshing and tasty. It can be a part of your healthy diet. With the right amount of daily drinking, cranberry can provide a lot of health benefits also. However, do not overtake it as it may create several health issues as well. And also do not store your homemade juice more than three weeks as it may get rotten and become undrinkable.
By reading this article, I believe you have got sufficient knowledge on how to make cranberry juice and why you should do it. Do not hold back or hesitate to write us back if you find anything to ask. Happy Juice Making!
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