Processing of cranberry jelly and cranberry sauce

About 80% of the cranberry crop is processed. Some of the processed berries are made directly into cranberry juice drinks and traditional types of cranberries sauces.

In manufacturing cranberries jelly, the clear juice from the boiled fruit that has been passed through a pulper, is nixed with sugar, about 0.35% of dispersed pectin is added and no water used.

The mixture is heated briefly to bring the soluble solid content to 65% and citric solution is added to regulate the pH 3.0 to 3.2.

Cranberry sauce production starts with frozen fruit. After the frozen fruit is dumped into warm water for defrosting the slurry passes through scavenger and rock trap prior dewatering and cooking.

For whole cranberry sauce carefully hand-sorted berries are added to the puree after the first cooking. No additional pectin is needed to set the jellied sauce because the berries have an abundance of natural pectin.

Both cranberry sauce and cranberry jelly are preserved by heat processing. If the products are heated to about 190 F (87.8 C) prior to filling into containers further heating is not necessary to attain commercial after sealing the containers.

If packed at lower temperatures, the containers should be sealed and heated in a water bath or with spray of water at 185 – 200 F (85-93.3 C) prior to cooling.
Processing of cranberry jelly and cranberry sauce