Homemade Cranberry Juice

Hello! Its amazing how I have two posts in one day! I do a lot of experiments..hence the last post that wasn't really an experiment but then turns out it was.  Anyway, my youngest son wanted me to buy cranberries.  I had said something about buying them and dehydrating them for the parrots but he wanted to eat them.  After about two weeks, I decided to boil them up.  I started with the directions on the bag.  1 -12oz bag of cranberries, 1 c sugar, 1 c water.  I boiled the sugar water and then added the cranberries. I let them heat until they were soft and mushy. They will kinda change color too.  Eventually they will boil but by that time most are popped and mushy.  So we tasted it. Sweet yet bitter..but still a little too sweet.  So I decided to make juice with it. 

One bag will make a normal size grocery juice container.  Honestly unless you can buy super discounted cranberries, it will probably cost about the same as buying the juice in the store.  But it's something fun you can do to teach older kids how to boil things, watch for skin cracks (preps them to help you can tomatoes), and stirring.  I had two bags so I ended up with two juice containers.  Two bags makes 1 gallon if you have a gallon milk jug laying around.

So here is how I made the juice.

Cranberrry Juice
1 bag of cranberries or 12 oz
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

1 old juice container-2 quarts or so
strainer
blender

Mix sugar and water together in a medium size sauce pan.  Bring to a boil.  Add washed cranberries and continue stirring until it comes to a boil.  Turn off heat and let cool a bit.  After it was slightly cool take about 1 cup of mixture and place it in the blender.  Do not put a lot in there because well just don't you will regret it.  Purée that and then strain the mixture into a pitcher or pourable bowl.  Continue to do this until all the cranberry mixture is done.  Take the purée mix that you have strained and pour it into a washed juice container.  Fill with cold water.

  I suggest pouring half way up the remaining part of the container and tasting it to see if it is at your sweetness level.  I like mine poured all the way up. It will be a tad foamy but that's ok. Just cap and give a couple shakes and place in the fridge.