canning peaches

[maxmillan]

I'd like to can peaches with the skin on. Will this result in something gross?

I thought I'd simply cut the peaches in half, remove the pit and store them in a simple syrup solution without having to boil the peaches. I've seen this done with lemons and wonder if it'll work with peaches. Of course I'll use none sprayed peaches.

If so, what percentage sugar to water ratio?

Thanks for your help and any lead to threads on this site.

[fiftydollars]

You can leave the skin, but it will turn kind of ugly.

[Smithy]

I've left the skin on nectarines and canned them. Sometimes the skin comes loose from the nectarine, but usually it stays attached. Peaches are more problematic because of the fuzz; the skin texture isn't as pleasant after canning. It won't hurt anything, though.

When you talk about canning the peaches without boiling them, do you mean putting cold peaches into cold jars with cold syrup and not boiling afterward? I don't think that will keep, especially not with a nice sugary (read: nutrients) syrup. Your choices are to get the peaches and syrup to the boil, then put them into sterilized jars and seal while everything's still hot, or to put the cold peaches into the jars and pour the syrup over them, seal and then boil the whole thing. I think the first method is called hot packing and the second method is cold packing, but I may have those backward.

I can't see a reason in the world not to can peach halves, except possibly that you'll waste space. The beauty of slicing peaches into smaller chunks (I usually cut them into 8ths or smaller) is that you get more fruit into the jar.

[snowangel]

Another option is to freeze them. I often make peach pie filling, line a pie tin with foil, add the filling, cover and freeze. When frozen, you can just remove the foil package from the pie tin. When time for a pie, make crust, line the pan, add the filling and bake (frozen). I'll dig out the recipe and add it to RecipeGullet!

Nancy is right about space with the peach halves. You won't get very many into jars, and they'll get pretty smashed up if you don't have wide mouth jars. And, if you're going to do this, you need to process them in a hot water bath.

[Smithy]

I've never thought of freezing the filling in the pie pan so it already had the right shape and dimensions. What a great idea!

[snowangel]

I've never thought of freezing the filling in the pie pan so it already had the right shape and dimensions.  What a great idea!

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You can thank my grandmother. Farm women knew all of the tricks of the trade, including avoiding canning in August when they were busy with the garden, feeding the men in the fields, and hating standing over pots of hot water in August heat.

[sparrowgrass]

Max, you do know how to drop the peaches in boiling water for a minute, so the skin slips right off?

To can safely, you will need to boiling water bath them--for instructions, go to the USDA web site..

Freezing would be easier, if you have the space.

[maxmillan]

Thanks for all your replies. I've decided to pit the peaches, slice them and freeze the pieces with the skin on. This seems to be the simplest method to keeping the peaches unadulterated as much as possible.

Hopefully this will suffice for pies and toppings when I cook them later. This will be good for smoothies, too!

[fiftydollars]

But don't give up on canning quite yet. I have stone fruit from past summers that I am always happy to have when I need it. I don’t have a deep freezer (something that gets at least down to the neighborhood of -10 and isn't constantly defrosting), so maybe this is why, but frozen stone fruit doesn’t seem to hold up that well after about 6 months or so. On the other hand, my canned fruit stays great for years.

This is also why I prefer to remove the skins and always pack hot fruit. In the long haul, it keeps its color and flavor a little better that way. This also goes for tomatoes.

Edited August 10, 2006 by fiftydollars (log)