How to Know If a Cranberry Is Ripe

Come Thanksgiving each year, cranberries go through an annual surge in popularity, only to be forgotten once again after the winter holidays pass. If you use fresh cranberries as part of your holiday feast, you want to use berries that are fresh and at their prime. Luckily, there are several things you can do to make sure you use only the best cranberries in your recipes. You can put the berries through some simple tests.

Bowl

Instructions

- 1
  Inspect the cranberries visually, looking at the berry coloring. Ripe cranberries are bright red or scarlet.
- 2
  Look for berries with a firm, taut skin -- more indications of the fruits' ripeness.
- 3
  Place the berries in a bowl full of water. The ripe berries float to the top, while those that are not mature remain at the bottom. The fact that ripe cranberries float is one reason they are grown in bogs or in fields that are later flooded, allowing the ripe berries to float to the top.
- 4
  Bounce the berries on a hard surface such as a kitchen countertop as a final test if you still cannot tell whether a cranberry is ripe. A ripe cranberry bounces, while those that are not ripe make dull, thudding sounds.

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