Storing strawberries

My local supermarket had a special on strawberries. Buy one pint, get two free. My questions is how to store them in refrigerator. Any help would be appreciated.

[bakergal]

I've been using Harold McGee's hot water method, and it works wonderfully well. It greatly increases the life of berries. I've had blueberries last four weeks! Maybe they'd last longer, but we ate them.

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/651851

[chowser]

Don't wash them. Put them in a tupperware, or other air tight container (glass works great), in the refrigerator and they'll surprisingly last for weeks.

I thought you weren't supposed to put them in the refrigerator?

I eat what I can fresh the first 2 days, then clean the rest, and cut them up and add sugar. They'll macerate, and you have strawberries to put over icecream or shortcake. Sugar is a preservative, they'll last many days this way.

I find that my macerated strawberries get mushy very fast--even when in big chunks.

I usually wash them, then cut off the stem and core. I leave them whole. Then I put in a ziplock bag, and store as many as I can eat in a few days in the fridge. If I cannot eat them in a few days, I wash them, dry them off good, put them on a cookie sheet, and put in the freezer. When they are frozen, I put them in a ziplok bag. This is great in the late spring/early summer ( when they are in season where I live). I usually buy a few flats, and freeze them to make jam later in the year- sometimes for Christmas presents! If you freeze them individually, they will stay intact, and will not stick to one another in the freezer.
Good luck

I haven't tried this yet, but I hope to give it a shot this year...

Alton Brown showed a technique for freezing fresh strawberries which involved a cooler, with a bowl of dry ice in the bottom. Fresh strawberries are placed on the floor of the cooler (not in the ice, which is in a bowl). Keep them in the cooler for a short amount of time- 1 minute or so? The strawberries freeze so quickly, the water in the fruit's cells doesn't have time to crystallize. (As I remember it, he said that when water crystallizes, the cells are destryoed, which is why the strawberries thaw mushy.) You can store these in a freezer for up to a year, and supposedly when you defrost, they are the same texture as fresh strawberries. I'm waiting until this spring for some farm fresh strawberries to give it a try. Anyone else ever tried it?

I tried it two years ago. The berries froze well and remained whole when defrosted. But they still had the unmistakeable taste of frozen berries. I wouldn't eat them whole and straight like I would a fresh berry. They did make really nice addition to desserts and margaritas. But the cost (dry ice anit cheap) and hassle just wasn't worth it, imo. So I tried canning last year.

Link: http://goodeatsfanpage.com/Season6/EA...

Thanks for the feedback! Maybe I won't give it a try after all...

[ozmotion]

After the dry ice process, store them vacuum packed (FoodSaver, etc) to prevent oxidation and freezer burn. This part helps a lot.

I have had the most longevity putting them in a Tupperware-type container with *lots* of paper towels (under/sides/top). Moisture is the enemy of strawberries.

When in a hurry, I put my 3-pint cardboard container (covered with several folded paper towels) in a plastic shopping bag and tie a knot, pushing out the air. This works pretty well too.