Get the peaches. I use seconds for a lot of my canning – if you are canning, it doesn’t matter that the fruit isn’t perfect. Peaches, at the place I bought from, were running $3.75/pound. The seconds? .75 cents/pound. This means that 50 lbs of peaches is NOT $188 dollars, but more like $39. My kinda price.
Here’s how you do it. With seconds, you need to move fast. Same day or at latest, the very next day. I bought mine coming home from my sister’s baby shower, so I was not ready to do them same day. I did them the next morning.
- Blanch your peaches. 1-3 minutes.
- Cool your peaches.
- Trim and skin your peaches.
- Cut your peaches up and drop ‘em into a large bowl.
- Drain the bowl.
Now, I cold packed mine. You can also hot pack them, but it was more work that I wanted to do. Cold packing was easier!
To cold pack:
- ¼ tsp. of Ascorbic acid in each pint jar, ½ tsp. in each quart.
- Fill to the shoulder with peaches. (The shoulder is where the jar starts to slope and become the neck, with the rings on it.)
- Then, make up a syrup. I like less sugar in something so sweet, so I used a 10% solution – 1 cup sugar to 10 cups water. Easy to remember too!
- Fill the jars to the shoulder with the syrup. Most jars won’t take anywhere near a cup, even the quarts; the peach juice fills them up.
- Water can for 25 minutes for pints and 30 minutes for quarts.
- Make sure your jars seal.
You now have peaches to do lots of things with. Peach pie for Christmas anyone?
Are you using the tattler lids? Do you have any trouble getting them to seal? I’ve had trouble getting mine to seal properly. Or maybe I’m not doing them right. I check the seal after canning and cooling. I can lift the lids with a slight push with a finger. I think the lids should be tight enough that I need the lifter to open them. But that’s not how they turn out.
Yes, I’m using Tattler lids. They seem to have a slightly lower seal percentage than the Ball lids. The way I’ve found to get the best seal is to tighten all the way I can (given arthritis), back it off 1/4 turn, can, then tighten as soon as it comes out of the water bath. This is also as per the instructions. If it’s a pressure can, it’s more likely to seal.
Thank you. I’ll keep trying until I learn to get a better seal. I wish I had a pressure canner but it’s not in my immediate future.