When you pop freshly-picked blueberries into your mouth expecting sweet, delicious fruit, then sour blueberry fruit is a great disappointment. Unless you’ve selected tart berry cultivars, altering your care and harvest of blueberries may solve the problem. Read on to learn why blueberries are sour and what to do with sour blueberries.
What Makes Blueberries Sour?
The first thing to do when garden blueberries are sour is to determine the characteristics of the cultivar you have chosen. With hundreds of types of blueberries available, the cultivar fruit taste can vary from tart to sweet. If your bushes are intended to produce tart or sour fruit, you may want to select new cultivars. A common cause of sour blueberry fruit is over-production on a bush. If your bush is newly planted, you’ll get sweeter, bigger berries if you remove all blossoms for the first year or two to allow the root system to establish. Even mature blueberry bushes can over produce some years and, if left to their own devices, produce abundant but sour fruit. Keep your eye on buds and thin back when needed. Let your berries ripen on the bush. It is not a good idea to pick berries early. Even if you can get sour blueberry fruit to soften by storing them beside apples or bananas, they will not sweeten any further. If blueberries are sour when picked, they will remain so. You can’t sweeten sour blueberries once you take them from the bush. Try eating a few berries before beginning your harvest and remember that all berries do not ripen simultaneously. Even in one cluster, some may be ripe and some unripe. Identify unripe berries by the reddish hue, but even solid blue berries need to stay on the bush for a few days before they develop true sweetness. Waiting is a good way to sweeten sour blueberries. Blueberries can remain on the bush for 10 days after they begin to ripen, so don’t be in a hurry. The fruit size and sweetness increase very quickly at the end of the ripening process. Ensuring that your blueberry plants are grown in acidic soil and keeping them fertilized annually will also help to sweeten the blueberries.
What to Do With Sour Berries
If you’ve already harvested your blueberry fruit, you may be asking what to do with sour berries that haven’t fully ripened. Placing the berries in a paper bag and storing them in a cool place will allow the fruit to ripen. If you add an apple,banana, oravocado to the bag, the berries ripen more quickly. Keep in mind that this will soften immature berries, but it will not sweeten sour berries. If you want to cook with the berries, just add extra sugar or honey.
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FAQs
Instead, cook down the berries with sugar in a skillet or sauce pot, stirring and mashing gently with a wooden spoon until they release their juices.
How do I make my blueberry bushes sweeter fruit? ›
Blueberries prefer full sun. Sun equals sugar in terms of fruit. Although the plants will grow and produce fruit in partial shade conditions, the fruit may be quite tart. The more sun the plants get, the more sugar they produce.
What does it mean if blueberries taste sour? ›
With hundreds of types of blueberries available, the cultivar fruit taste can vary from tart to sweet. If your bushes are intended to produce tart or sour fruit, you may want to select new cultivars. A common cause of sour blueberry fruit is over-production on a bush.
What to do with blueberries that taste bad? ›
The simplest is simply to macerate them with sugar. Mix the berries with a few tablespoons of sugar and some citrus zest. Blueberries pair well with lime but orange or lemon would work as well. You'll want to mash a few berries to release the juice but leave most of them whole.
How do you make berries less sour? ›
White sugar, honey, agave nectar, and maple syrup are common and should be double the amount of liquid you might add. A splash of balsamic vinegar, a squirt of lemon juice, or a sprinkle of a few herbs or spices can also add a complex layer of flavor.
How to make sour blueberries sweet? ›
Macerating—soaking or steeping in liquid and/or sweetener—is one of the easiest and fastest ways to doctor up sub-par berries. Toss them in sugar, honey, or maple syrup, along with a little fresh juice or alcohol (an herbal liqueur, like elderflower spirit, would be great).
Do coffee grounds help blueberry bushes? ›
Coffee grounds are highly acidic, they note, so they should be reserved for acid-loving plants like azaleas and blueberries. And if your soil is already high in nitrogen, the extra boost from coffee grounds could stunt the growth of fruits and flowers.
What chemical makes blueberries sour? ›
Blueberry flavor, also correlated with oxalic acid, citric acid, and ORACFL. It negatively correlated with quinic acid and total acids. Sour taste correlated with total acids and TA, and negatively correlated with pH and BRIX:TA ratio.
Why do my blueberries taste bad? ›
If you harvest too early, some blueberries have a grainy texture and a sour taste. Grainy-tasting blueberries may be made into a jam, but watch for and discard any moldy berries. Prune your plants in late winter to early spring the next year and fertilize with a slightly acidic fruit tree food.
What is blueberry sour? ›
This Blueberry Sour co*cktail has a fresh flavour of blueberries coming from the Bols Blueberry liqueur combined perfectly with the acidity of fresh lemon juice. The best combination for a refeshing co*cktail!
If you think your blueberries are too sour for eating raw, though, you can cook them to help reduce the tartness. You can make a sauce, compote, or jam to use the berries before they go bad, or you can bake them into muffins, pies, bread, or cakes.
How to make blueberry taste more blueberry? ›
Mixing a little coriander in with your blueberry desserts or pancakes will make the blueberries taste more, well, blueberry-y. And there's a scientific reason why.
What spice enhances blueberries? ›
With its sweet, woody flavor, cinnamon works with blueberry to wrap around you and warm you all the way through.
What flavor cancels out sour? ›
Sweetness: From sugar, honey, fruits or otherwise, sweetness will counteract bitter and sour flavours. It can also be used to cut down the heat of a particularly spicy meal.
How do you fix too sour? ›
How Do You Neutralize Sour Taste in Food? If a dish is too sour, add a little bit of sugar! Sweetness balances out sour flavors, so if something makes your mouth pucker, a dash of sugar may help soften the blow of the sour food.
What gets rid of sour taste? ›
Rinse your mouth: Make a rinse using a half-teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of baking soda added to a glass of water. Swishing with this solution can help clear out a bad taste. Avoid spicy or fatty foods: Try to limit or avoid any foods or beverages that trigger acid reflux.
What does Epsom salt do for blueberry plants? ›
You can use Epsom salt if your blueberries need magnesium. You should add one tablespoon of Epsom salts and one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to two gallons of water and apply to the base of the blueberry plants. This method can help revive blueberry plants and encourage them to green up.
What brings out the flavor of blueberries? ›
Botanical blueberry pairings
Citrusy and fresh green notes from cucumber helps to bring out the natural sweetness and fragrant floral notes in fresh blueberries. Rosemary Blueberry: The piney green and gentle earthy notes of rosemary work well alongside a sweet and ripe blueberry flavor.
How do you get the most flavor out of blueberries? ›
Balance out the acidity of balsamic vinegar with the sweetness of blueberries, whether is it part of a recipe or a reduction. Don't forget about spices and herbs. Blueberries pair well with basil, cinnamon, ginger, lavender, lemon, thyme, nutmeg, rosemary, mint, and many more!
What is the best fertilizer for blueberries? ›
Fertilizers that supply nitrogen in the ammonium form are preferred over those supplying nitrogen as nitrate because blueberries are sensitive to nitrate and injury may occur. Use a 7‐7‐7 or 4-3-4 fertilizer or one of similar grade made for acid‐loving plants.
