Hard Cranberries
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They should be springy.
Cranberries & Touch
Cranberries have a famous test. It’s called the bounce test. What you do is take a cranberry and drop it onto a hard enough surface and see if it bounces. It should.
Ripe cranberries are springy and not firm or soft. Try bouncing a few cranberries on the table to see if they are ripe or not.
The sound should be a type of ‘boing’ sound. I know that’s not very scientific but you get the picture.
So the answer to the question is yes, it should be somewhat firm, but also springy or spongy so that the berry has some give to it when you squeeze it.
Too Ripe and Dried Cranberries
Of course this only applies to raw cranberries and not their dried counterparts which are supposed to be raisin-like of course.
And if you do find fresh cranberries that are too hard then they likely need time to ripen a bit longer.
If they are too squishy then they are probably starting to go bad.
Hope this helps.
– Cranby
