ive talked about this with some of you in the past. wondered what you folks favorite recipes are? everything ive tried wasnt good. the trail mix bars idea sounds like a good one. this is the 1st time i let them go almost soft on the bush and they actually are sweet and have a good taste. still astringent though.
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Perhaps wine? Or jelly with help from pectin or lemon juice?
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making wine. It has excellent antioxidants and perfect for wine making
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They taste terrible by themselves but mixed with 40 parts apple to 1 part Aronia juice they are delicious. The mixture tastes a lot like grape juice.
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How many plants do you have to get 30 pounds of berries? What cultivars do you have?
I have Viking, and got a few handfuls of fruit last year. This year I got about 5 berries from 2 plants. It was a bad summer.
Anyway, here are some ideas-
Smoothies (with some honeyberries)
Add to pancake mix (in lieu of blueberry)
Fruit leather (like in this pic)
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I have 5 gallons of wine going that I started a month ago, using about 30lbs of aronia berries. I transferred it 2 weeks ago and it actually taste pretty good but had a decent amount of sugar left, not sure how it will be when completely dry. I added 10lbs of sugar to get me to a potential alcohol of 13.5% @clarkinks I might give this a try with some of the apple cider I have going, it’d be easy enough to transfer a pint from the wine I have going, I can see how it could benefit my acidic cider.
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If anyone in the area needs aronia let me know I can give you a hundred pounds and never miss them I have acres of berries. They are said to be one of the most healthiest berries in the world second only to acai. The third healthiest berry with similar issues processing is elderberry. It’s my belief the ultra healthy purple fruits have concentrated nutrients that can impact flavor. Red fleshed apples and pears I believe are similarly nutritious but with the same drawbacks. Many nutritious foods also have high tannin levels. Acorns are very nutritious but are often not used because the tannins content is high in most. The natives ate aronia and acorns in very large quantities. Many think the three sisters corn, squash and beans were all natives ate but that was not the case. Pemmican was made in large quantities from aronia. It should be noted I greatly prefer nutrient rich foods such as blueberries and concord grapes. https://youtu.be/9GoyoO4G5Y8
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What would the alcohol percent be you think, if you just used the berries and no sugar?
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You can certainly put some in sauerkrauts if you make mixed fermented vegetables. And you could also try making them into a fruit shrub, perhaps mixed with apples, surely there is no problem with sugar since you can add all you want. But I would prefer to freeze them if you have the freezer space.
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@PaulinKansas6b Unfortunately I didn’t measure the SG of just the berries but I’m guessing not high enough to make a wine, maybe 5 to 10 percent? Unlike a lot of things that you can make wine with these don’t have a ton of juice either, so you have to add some water to get the smashed berries covered in juice. When I made wine from grapes I didn’t add any sugar or water. I also think the tannins would be really intense without the sugar water, you could probably mix juice from another fruit to cover the crushed berries. I plan to back sweeten just a little with some grape juice depending how it taste in a few months.
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i only have 2 bushes but they are 8’ x 8’. one is viking and the other is a polish cultivar i dont remember the name. there was so much fruit on them they were weighed nearly to the ground. fed a constant diet of composted chic. manure. 
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One of the secrets to growing apples and pears is you can sweeten anything with them @PaulinKansas6b. Pears can be canned as pear sauce already pre sweetened. Pears make a puree not a juice unfortunately. Apples make the best juice. Apple juice I have used to can Pears or apples or anything else. Juiced the apples then canned whatever normally needed sweetened in the juice. Have canned blackberries and other summer berries in peach juice. Nature gives us everything we need. If you want higher alcohol honey is better than sugar to get there. Make sure it’s local honey not store bought as they add preservatives to their honey which will prevent fermentation. There was honey found in the Egyptian tombs thousands of years old that was still good and the stores are adding preservatives for some reason. My guess would be they add it to keep it liquid on the shelf longer without turning to sugar but I don’t know that for sure. Here is a simple recipe from How to Make Frozen Aronia Berry Wine | Omaha Magazine
How to Make Frozen Aronia Berry Wine
Nov 14, 2017 12:22PM â—Ź By Patrick McGee
If you’re anything of a forager, after summer and fall, you have a freezer full of frozen berries. They can keep for a long time, and it’s easy to pick more than is necessary once you get into the bushes. Foraged berries are great. But when the next year rolls around, you need to make room. It’s time to use up those frozen berries.
Producing wine can use up quite a few. Frozen berries are easier to ferment because the freezing and thawing breaks down the cell walls of the fruit, making it easier to juice firmer berries. And just about everyone loves wine. It makes a great gift, and the wine will be done just in time for the holiday (if started far enough in advance in the fall). Clearing out your freezer will make room for fall berries, winter trout, and other game.
Personally, I had a freezer full of aronia berries from Kurt and Tina Geschwender, who live in Ponca Hills, and were gracious enough to let a friend and I pick their excess. The berries are firm and tart, a bit like cranberries, and are loaded with antioxidants. Because they are so sturdy, freezing helps to pulp them, lending to a better wine with less effort.
Finished aronia berry wine is crisp and dry with a beautiful dark maroon color. It retains the flavor of the berry.
The aronia berry wine is simple and uses the same equipment and basic knowledge discussed in my previous article “Foraging and Fermenting Wild American Grapes,” which can be found in the August 2016 issue of Omaha Magazine online. The same basic equipment used to make grape wine can be used for aronia berries.
It is essential to have a fermentation bucket, fermentation lock, and straining bag—all of which must be sanitized.
Plenty of berries, sugar, and other items are also necessary.
My recipe is modified from Winemaker’s Recipe Handbook’s cranberry recipe (the Blackberry recipe is also a solid option). The following makes one gallon of wine—or step up the quantities to make more:
- 3 pounds aronia berries
- 7 pints water (preferably not tap)
- 2.5 pounds sugar
- 0.5 teaspoon pectic enzyme
- 0.5 teaspoon yeast energizer
- 1 Campden tablet (crushed)
- 1 package wine yeast (EC-1118 yeast best tolerates the antioxidant-rich aronia berries)
Adding half a pint of red grape concentrate is preferable to some, but I like to let the aronia berries shine.
First, place washed, frozen berries in a straining bag in your fermenter. Mash and squeeze the thawing pulp in the fermenter. This would be difficult with fresh, firm berries. Tie the bag and leave it in the fermenter. Stir in all other ingredients except for yeast. Cover the fermenter. Twenty-four hours later, add the yeast and cover. Stir daily. When fermentation slows to a near standstill (after about five days), remove the straining bag and pulp. After about three more weeks, siphon the wine into a sanitized glass secondary fermenter. A hydrometer is useful for assessing the progress of fermentation. In about two months, if it is clear, bottle it.
A deep, red bottle of aronia berry wine is sure to be a memorable Christmas gift to anyone lucky enough to receive one. More importantly, there’s room in the freezer for that fall turkey.
See omahamagazine.com/articles/foraging-and-fermenting-wild-american-grapes for more information on basic winemaking with wild grapes. Visit fermenterssupply.com for more information.
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@clarkinks very interesting!! Another reason to grow “all the fruits”, one thing can complement another. I want to learn more about these native things and also native American methods like pemmican!
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One of my favorite things is to use foam off the apple cider on the oatmeal. That with some fresh real milk and cream is incredible. In the old days in this area everyone had dairy cows and usually for a few favors or barter the milk was easy to come by. The milk we get from the store has the cream skimmed off so it’s not the best. When it’s you doing the milking you can be the one who skims off the cream not them.
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Sounds amazing!!! Yeah we get some fresh raw milk from several folks around here! How amazing compared to that walmart stuff… The Brown Swiss milk is amazing…, better than Holstein… But the yellow Jersey milk is so good its like a dream so much flavor and cream better than any walmart ice cream even!! I for sure plan to get my own Jersey or Gournsey one day! The high yellow beta carotene content has to be good for ya 
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@PaulinKansas6b
Yes it’s very good for you! When you make cider you will get a lot of extra foam on top when you run it through a juicer. That foam is just as sweet as sugar but it can’t be left in the cider. Another thing I mentioned on this thread Hot weather is here! “You might as well make yogurt outside to go with the fruit that’s what I do. I boil the milk on the stove cool it down and dump in the cup of yogurt. I set the yogurt outside on a 100 degree day for 6-8 hours in the gallon pan . Once it’s turned to yogurt use the whey poored off the top in with other things. I love cooking outside like that. Mixed with your fresh fruit fresh yogurt is excellent!” . Another thing you can do is these days where it’s not hot enough I have sat my yogurt in the car which is about 10 degrees hotter or inside of something made of metal as it gets hot in there. Grab a carton of your favorite plain yogurt from the store to make the yogurt it’s very easy. In the winter they have yogurt makers. Once you make yogurt or cheese from your milk it keeps a long time. The whey you get from making yogurt is great on oatmeal as well . People pay good money for whey and yogurt. Aronia are harder to use with wine being one of the best ways.
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Steve, I had just a small harvest (bush only 2 yrs old) but I just cooked them for awhile, ran through a food mill, brought back to boil and sealed the sauce in hp jars. Then later when I made apple sauce I added a jar of the aronia sauce. It was quick and easy and added something (in addition to color!) without being up front. I liked the result. I plan to do that again. But when my bushes get to giving me as much as you have I think I’ll leave some for the birds! The wine sounds interesting though. And seems like it would make some attractive vinegar. Good luck! Sue
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birds dont touch them here. if unpicked they dehydrate into hard little aronia rocks. i just gave a couple pounds to my chics that fell on the ground. they love them. i have all the harvest in the garage freezer still in the 3 big bowls i harvested them in. been awhile since i made wine but ill probably try it. mixing them in applesauce sounds good also. one of the Alaska boys mentioned awhile back making trail mix bars with them. im hoping they see this thread and give me the recipe.
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Following up on my shrub post, since I am a great fan of shrubs (nothing more refreshing than shrub and sparkling water), recipe for any berry below. Of course aronia being a crunchy thing you want to steep it in vinegar longer than one day, or coarsely blend it with vinegar in a blender before steeping. Good also for seaberries, since you always get a lot of damaged berries. You can add honey, pears or apples to taste.
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So useful and educational, thank you!!
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