Blueberries in can

Blueberries can be canned, mainly used for pie fillings, are cleaned and inspected, placed in cans, and the cans are then filled with water or with a 10-30% sugar solution.

Canned blueberries can be light or heavy syrup packed or water packed. For this fresh or frozen blueberries are place in cans, light syrup or water is added to cover the head space and can are sealed and heat processed at about 93-95 C q-with 25-30° C minute holding time.

Canned blueberry pie filling, in which the berries are cooked, sweetened and packed in a thickened liquid are very popular in the United States and Great Britain. Canned blueberries may vary from a highly attractive free-flowing product to one is clumped into a firm mass. Clumping can be greatly reduced by cooling with agitation, which apparently interfered with the bonding together of berries by surface wax or cutin.
Blueberries in can

Process and uses of canned blueberries

Fresh ripe blueberries may spoil of left out at room temperature for a day or more, but they will keep for 2 or 3 days if stored without washing in a covered container in the refrigerator. Canned blueberries can be light or heavy syrup packed or water packed.

Blueberries can be canned, mostly used for pie fillings, are cleaned and inspected, placed in cans, and the cans are then filled with water or with a 10-30% sugar solution to cover the head space.

The open cans are the exhausted or heated in free-flowing steam for 10 minutes, and finally sealed and heat process at about 93-95 °C with 25-30 minutes holding time.

The packing syrup from canned or frozen berries usually has picked up much of the color and flavor form the fruit. Hence, it may be used as a flavoring or a syrup for ice-cream sodas and sundaes, milk shake, mixed drinks, pancakes and waffles.

Compared with other fruits, canned blueberries are an excellent source of iron, fair sources of vitamin A, about average in protein fat and calcium and low in phosphorus.

Canned blueberries packed in water are low in calories and carbohydrates because they contain only about two-thirds the levels of the nutrients that are supplied by the raw fruit.
Process and uses of canned blueberries

Harvesting blueberries

Blueberries are one of very few fruits native to North America, which continues to be the largest producer of them in the world. They should harvest when they are fully colored and handling should be minimized as they are very delicate and damage easily and the bloom on the fruit surface can be destroyed.

The berries are very small and have to be picked by hand and hand harvesting of highbush blueberries is labor intensive and requires as many as 1150 hours of labor per hectare.

To get the highest quality berries, harvest 4 to 6 days after the berry turns completely blue. If picked earlier, the berries will not be as large and the flavor will not fully developed.

Over the row, self-propelled vibrating machines have been developed for harvesting   blueberries. The use of mechanical vibratos nearly triples worker productivity and reduced harvesting cost by 55%.

Even though the picking cost is lower for mechanically harvested fruit, more berries are picked per hectare by hand and they have a higher value.

Harvesting blueberries, low bush blueberries like there are in Maine, was accomplished using a tool called a rake. A rake is an odd shaped tool that has a handle. Low bush blueberries require the harvester to get drown to ground level.

Mixtures of soft ripe and hard ripe fruits should be avoided as the over-ripe ones can speed deterioration.
Harvesting blueberries