How to quickly sort / clean wild blueberries by blowing and floating

Рет қаралды 43,374

10 жыл бұрын

We industrialized the process by blowing and floating because we pick too many to sort by hand. These methods are not perfect though as good berries get caught with the unripe berries. I call those refuse berries but instead of throwing them away, we make them into wine as the unripe berries don't mash easily and wont negatively contribute to the wine.
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Пікірлер: 12

@CedarRidgeCompany 2 жыл бұрын

What we do is blow the leaves out and then put our berries onto a 1/4" screen that you can buy at most hardware stores. That screen will allow all the unripen white and tiny berries to fall though. No loosing big ripe ones through floating as some ripe ones also float. You can also just rinse them on the screen to clean off more of the dirt and what not. Then they are pretty much done and ready to go.

@Tendo8002 10 жыл бұрын

Nice easy way, I am considering building a larger scale cleaner for next season, with fan, vacuum and conveyour. Your design looks like a fantastic budget alternative though, I do think that you would get better result from yours if you move the cardboard up a bit though, somewhere betweeen the bottom and the middle of the fan. Just my guess, not based on anything =)

@christopherdouglas7684 6 жыл бұрын

The ones that sink are good to use? And you freeze the florets?

@farmforage8234 10 жыл бұрын

Thanks! What would you use to build the conveyor? Next year I may try to funnel the wind a bit more and possibly even use a screen mesh for them to travel down with a fan blowing from the bottom. Or if I had the screen mesh at a slight angle with one fan below and one in front and bounced the berries off the screen but towards a container the leaves may get swept away before reaching the bucket.

@CedarRidgeCompany 2 жыл бұрын

build a table with a 1/4" screen on an angle, the screen will allow all the white ones to fall through. Put a leaf blower under the table pointed towards the end where the berries will roll off and into your bins. The air will blow all the leaves straight out, the berries will drop into the bucket.

@BenDonahower 7 жыл бұрын

that's a win.

@ConzStalcup 6 жыл бұрын

If you take the time to hand pick you will only need to rinse once. The less you handle them, less juice lost and firmer they will be. But then again I was raised picking huckleberries. Just my experience.

@SvenskaIdioterna 5 жыл бұрын

Well, of course. I would also love to pick them by hand if I had the time, but picking tens upon tens of thousands of blueberries by hand would just be too bothersome without some rough tools which sadly also grip a lot of extra stuff while picking.

@ConzStalcup 6 жыл бұрын

Oh yes, with very little leaves and sticks.