Foods for free. Anything you want to post about wild foods or foraging, hunting and fishing. Please note, this section includes pictures of hunting.
Sorry to say that Selfsufficientish or anyone who posts on here is liable to make a mistake when it comes to identification so we can't be liable for getting it wrong.
There are loads of sloes around here and I have read that you can pick them from nowish onwards but that leaving them until after the first frosts improves them. I have also read that sticking them in the freezer is just as good and at least that way they are there ready when you need them.
Firstly I have never used them before and have no idea about them apart from what they are, so excuse the daft questions.
Are they ripe as soon as they look like the pictures ie. dark bluish with whitish coating or do you have to leave them to be a certain size or something?
Opinions on the freezing thing and any information please.
to be ripe - they should be slightly flexible when you press them, and under that white blush, they should be purpleish. if they are as hard as bullets and green - they are not ripe!
The first frost thing helps the juice come out - and freezing works just as well. This year looks to be a good year for sloes. I have made sloe gin and sloe jam before. I just freeze them whole, seems to work just fine.
There seems a great abundance of sloes in the hedgerows this year, and I've been wondering if you can do anything else with them apart from make sloe gin. I've just found www.sloe.biz, which also has its own forum.
Seems jam, jelly, chutney, ice cream and chocolate are posibilities, though the gin thing gets a heavy emphasis. Might have a go with the jam.
Yeah I'm actually planning on some sort of hedgrow type jam and am freezing all the ingredients as I pick them so I've got them all ready at the same time and I can do lots of small pickings. I picked some sloes despite not being sure if they were ripe but it sounds as if they are fine, if not quite at their best. I figured there are so many around if I had to go out picking again later then there would be no problem.
I have a few old hedgrow jam recipes and I figured that in the days before freezers were common they must have used the fruits as they were ready and waiting until october/november sort of time for the sloes didn't seem to tie in with the other fruits.
I may do a later picking and do something with them on their own, but use the ones I've already got for combining with lots of other stuff. I like my jam with a bit of bite to it anyway.
Yeah, sloes are fine pre-frost. Just stick em in the freezer.
I also made sloe wine from a recipe from internet. Made it 2 yrs ago and it's finished but wont clear. Tastes lovely though. If I made it again, would stick half a ripe banana in the must- that always helps.
Always make sloe gin and sloe liqueur (that's just vodka instead of gin).
The usual is sloes in Oct, freeze for a couple of nights, then shove in wide necked bottle with a couple of spoons of sugar, and alcohol. Shake every few days. Ready for Christmas. Don't leave sloes in alcohol for more than a year or so (if you have that much control) as they will impart a bitter taste.
