Homemade Cranberry Juice: Recipe #2

I went back to the grocery store to get cranberries to make more juice, like in my previous Instructables. Unfortunately, cranberries were already out of stock. To make more juice, then, I needed to see if it was possible to make cranberry juice from dried cranberries. There are recipes! This Instructables is my first attempt at making cranberry juice from dried cranberries.

As always, the recipe picture above is a 4x6 JPG file. You can download it and print it on 4x6 photo paper to keep for your personal recipe box.

For equipment, you will need:

1. covered kettle at least 3 quarts in size
2. funnel
3. I use a canning funnel for better access
4. strainer
5. I chose to use a nut milk bag
6. something to store the juice in
7. I use a half-gallon Mason-style jar with a pour-spout lid

For ingredients, you will need:

1. 6 oz. of dried cranberries
2. 8 cups of water

1. Into the kettle, add the cranberries and water.

1. Turn on the heat
2. Bring the water to a boil
3. Reduce heat to a simmer*

*For those of you not in the know, simmer is defined as just below boiling. The liquid should be steaming but not bubbling. Some define it at 180°F.

1. Cover the kettle and allow it to simmer for about 30 minutes.

1. Assemble your container, funnel, and strainer
2. Pour the cooked juice into the strainer
3. When the strainer is full, squash the berries to wring out as much juice as possible

Since my strainer is a nut milk bag, I just squeeze the heck out of the bag to get as much juice as possible.

NOTE: The cooked cranberries can be eaten to get the fiber.

Allow the juice to come to room temperature, cover, and chill. You now have cranberry juice! I have not added sugar to this recipe because most dried cranberries come sweetened.

The picture on the left is the store-bought juice, and the picture in the middle is the home-made juice. There are definitely color and clarity differences (as seen in the picture on the right). However, the store-bought adds vegetable colorants to get that reddish color, so I feel color isn't a fair comparison. The home-made is a little foamy because I just shook it to mix it up, which is something you don't have to do with the store-bought.

Cost-wise, the only cost for this recipe is the cranberries, which cost $2.99. It costs $4.79 to buy a 2-quart bottle of Ocean Spray. Therefore, you save $1.80 by making the juice yourself. If you buy the cranberries in larger bags, it gets even cheaper to make. For example, a 12-oz. bag of Craisins is $4.99. That means you would get the second bottle for only 20¢ more! Two bottles for $4.99 or one bottle for $4.79 . . . I think the financial choice is clear on this one.

Ingredient-wise, there isn't anything inherently bad in the store-bought cranberry juice. They add 100% RDA of vitamin C per serving; I'm not exactly sure why. They also add 23 grams of sugar per serving, making 184 grams of sugar added. The sugar added to the dried cranberries is 26 grams per serving, or 104 grams total. There is much less sugar in the made-from-dry juice than the store-bought.

Taste-wise, the store-bought does not taste sugary at all. In fact, it is quite tart with a cloying cranberry-sauce-from-a-can flavor. The home-made is much brighter with a hint of fresh cranberry that borders on watermelon, actually. If I had to choose a personal preference, I'd choose the home-made instead of the store-bought every time (provided dried cranberries don't go up in price).

Chow for now!