Putting Up The Peach

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

It's an exciting night in Eau Claire, Wisc. We have 18 pounds of peaches, countless bushels of apples, 4 pints of raspberries and 3 pounds of blueberries. We are putting up, as they say. Putting up preserves. With so much bounty, it's hard to know where to start. We found recipes for canning peaches AND making jelly from peach pits and peels, so that's where we're starting. We have apple pectin jelly made the other day and are going to use that to stiffen up the peach juice for jelly.

First we are sterilizing jars. They've already been washed, so we'll just put them through the dishwasher (no soap) so they're hot when we put in the peaches.

Next we'll skin the peaches, saving pits and skin for a "peach pit jelly" recipe we found. Who knew?!

Boil a pan of water. Whilst you're at it, clip on your jelly thermometer and make sure that when the water it boiling, it reads 212 degrees. If not, note the discrepancy and make sure you adjust your jelly boiling temp later. Our thermometer reads 220. No wonder we made some stiff jelly yesterday. We will deduct 8 degrees from the temp we cook to henceforth.

There are Several Ways to can peaches, and here are a few. We are doing some of each and will report back with the results in the pup notes at the end.

COLD PACK PEACHES

Preparing Peaches
0. Prepare a peach holding tank of: 2 qt filtered water, 1 Tb vinegar, 1 Tb salt
1. Wash peaches and rinse well.
2. Dunk and roll a peach in boiling water. Take it out after you count to about 20 and slip the skin off into the skin-saving pile. (You can let it cool so as not to burn your paws.)
3. Drop the whole peach into the prepared holding tank
4. Cut the peaches in half and remove the pit. Scrape out the fibrous pit clingers on the peach half - they may turn brown in the jar. We cut the peaches into wedges since ours did not readily release from the pit. Leave them in the holding tank.

Prepare the Syrup
2-1/4 cups sugar (we used 1 c. sugar and (4) 1/32 tsp stevia)
5-1/2 cups of water.

Heat on the stove to dissolve the sugar and keep it hot. This recipe covered our 4 pints plus one near-quart jar, with a few tablespoons leftover.

Pack the Peaches
Drain the peaches and pack them into hot jars cavity side down in overlapping layers. Leave about a ½” head room and ladle hot syrup over the peaches. Leave about ¼” head room left.
Remove air bubbles using a knife. Cover the jars with rings and lids kept in boiling water.

Process in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes. Set jars on a cooling rack with cloth underneath to catch water drips - leave space between jars so air can circulate.

Notes from Guthrie: This is called cold pack because the peaches aren't cooked, but between skining them in boiling water and pouring hot syrup over, and then the canning bath, they are actually cooked. We read that these won't keep their beauty as much as hot pack peaches. Before we try hot pack, we're going to retry this one without the boiling water to peel. We found it made the peeled peaches a little mushy on the outside and hard to cut into wedges without ruining their form.

HOT PACK PEACHES

Use the same procedure as above, but instead of packing peaches in jars, add peaches to syrup in the pan and bring to a boil. Then pack into jars. Cover. And process in the canner.