Introduction: Homemade Cranberry Juice: Recipe #1

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About: Either nobody makes the stuff I want, or I can't find the stuff I want, or the stuff is too expensive. So, I decided to make the stuff I want. I created this profile to kind of keep track of the stuff I make. …

I have a high PSA (prostate-specific antigen). According to the Internet, one thing that can help with this is drinking cranberry juice. Therefore, I decided to see if making homemade cranberry juice would be less expensive than buying it from the store. This is the first recipe I am trying.

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

Supplies

For equipment, you will need:

  1. A colander if you are using fresh cranberries
  2. A Dutch oven or stock pot with cover of at least 5-quart size
  3. Fine mesh sieve
  4. Wood spoon or other pushing implement
  5. 8-cup bowl or measuring cup
  6. A covered pitcher of at least 3-quart size
  7. A stovetop or other heating device
  8. A refrigerator or other cooling device

NOTE: In 180 days of posting, nobody has bought anything through my Amazon affiliate links. Amazon, therefore, has shut down my affiliate store. That is why I have not posted links to the equipment.

For ingredients, you will need:

  1. 2 lb. fresh or frozen cranberries
  2. 2 qt. water
  3. 1½ cups sugar
  4. ½ cup lemon juice
  5. ½ cup orange juice

Step 1: If You Bought Fresh Berries . . .

If you bought fresh berries, they will need to be rinsed off before use. Pour the berries into a colander, and rinse them using water.

NOTE: Because I have never tasted a fresh cranberry, I decided to try one. They aren't as tart as I've been lead to believe. Not a lot of sweetness either. I can say the taste lingered in my mouth for quite some time. It was not unpleasant.

Step 2: Put Them in the Pot

Place the kettle on the stovetop. Pour in the berries. Over this, pour the water.

NOTE: As you can see, I am using a white enameled cast-iron pot. I'm wondering if the cranberries will stain this beyond repair.

Step 3: Boil and Simmer

Turn on the heat, and bring the water to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer, then cover the pot. Occasionally check to see if the cranberries have started bursting. You will actually hear them starting to burst, like popcorn but a little quieter. This may start happening during the boiling; at this point, you can turn down the heat. After most of them have burst (your time will vary; mine took about 10 minutes), remove the pot from the heat.

NOTE: The pot I'm using is 5½ quarts. You can see why I say a pot of at least 5 quarts. Anything smaller may overflow.

Step 4: Strain and Press

Slowly pour the mixture into the fine sieve placed over the bowl. In the beginning, you may want to use a ladle to prevent spillage. Press the berries with the crushing implement to get out as much juice as possible. You may have to perform this step in several batches, as all the berries may not fit in the sieve at the same time. Also, you will get some pulp build-up on the bottom of the sieve. Simply scrape this into the juice. Once all the juice is strained, discard the berry remains. (I have no idea what they could be used for and were NOT good for eating due to there being too many seeds.)

NOTE: The next time I do this, I may use a nut milk bag instead of the strainer. I find crushing the bag with my hands to be much easier than trying to push juice through a strainer; my hand started to cramp using the spoon-crushing method.

Step 5: Add Flavorings

Pour the strained juice back into the kettle. Add to this the sugar, orange juice, and lemon juice.

Step 6: Heat Again

Heat the juice. Occasionally stir. You are trying to feel when the sugar has dissolved because you won't be able to see it. When you feel no more sugar grit on stirring, remove the pot from heat to cool enough to store.

Step 7: Package

Pour the cooled juice into a covered pitcher. Place the pitcher in the refrigerator. Because I believed the recipe, I chose a 2-quart/half-gallon, wide-mouth, Mason-style jar as my pitcher. As you can see, that filled up with even more to spare. That is why I changed the equipment to include a 3-quart pitcher.

Step 8: Voilà!

The picture on the left is from the original recipe; the picture on the right is the stuff I made. There's seems to be a little clearer and redder.

Step 9: Was It Worth It?

The first thing I have to say is the original creator of this recipe was quite optimistic on a prep time of 35 minutes. Just squashing the berries through the sieve took more than 35 minutes. This recipe actually took me about 2 hours to make. Of course, that includes the time I took to take pictures and type this Instructables. Two hours of work is definitely going to make it harder for me to justify making this again. Also, the recipe makes more than 2 quarts. I had to split this into a couple of different jars AND a mug.

Cost-wise, the fact that this makes more than the 8 cups stated by the recipe means that the cost to make this fresh juice is ½¢ less than buying it from a store. I can decrease that even more by getting everything on sale. There should be some cranberry sales coming up with Thanksgiving 2025 now in the books.

As for clean-up, the kettle came through undamaged, though I cannot say the same for the wooden spoon I used. Looks like that is going to be permanently red.

Chow for now!