I have a dear friend who kindly brings me back a load of peaches 1-2 times a year when she travels south. They are by far the best, sweetest, juiciest peaches and I cannot get anything nearly as good at the grocery store. The only problem? We can't eat them all fast enough so I have to preserve them. Normally I freeze them but this year (as you may have read in my previous posts) I am seeing how close I can get to the way grandma used to do it so I am canning them.
For Acidic fruits and veggies (think tomato, pickle, strawberry, etc) you can use a hot water bath to process and seal the jars. A hot water bath is nothing more than a large pot that you fill with boiling water and add canning jars to. You then process the food you are canning to specs designed to destroy bad bacteria in that particular food (different for all) and the jars seal themselves and are shelf ready with a shelf life that can last a few years.
You really only need a few supplies to hot water bath. The first is a supply of mason jars. (If you have a big lots or dollar general these are the most economical locations for new jars). If you peruse garage sales though, you can often find them and everything is re-useable except the lid. Being that they are glass, they are completely sterilize-able (did I just make up a word?) Then a large pot and a jar lifter. (the funnel pictured is actually optional). I also highly recommend this book: The ball blue book of Canning. Literally has everything you need to know about canning.
For Acidic fruits and veggies (think tomato, pickle, strawberry, etc) you can use a hot water bath to process and seal the jars. A hot water bath is nothing more than a large pot that you fill with boiling water and add canning jars to. You then process the food you are canning to specs designed to destroy bad bacteria in that particular food (different for all) and the jars seal themselves and are shelf ready with a shelf life that can last a few years.
You really only need a few supplies to hot water bath. The first is a supply of mason jars. (If you have a big lots or dollar general these are the most economical locations for new jars). If you peruse garage sales though, you can often find them and everything is re-useable except the lid. Being that they are glass, they are completely sterilize-able (did I just make up a word?) Then a large pot and a jar lifter. (the funnel pictured is actually optional). I also highly recommend this book: The ball blue book of Canning. Literally has everything you need to know about canning.
so to recap:
Jars (with lids and rings of course)
Big pot
Jar lifter.
Your jars must be clean and it is best to run them through the dishwasher or heat in the boiling water for 5-10 minutes to ensure they are sterile.
Now lets start by blanching the peaches. This basically makes the skin of the peach slip off. All you do is boil water. Drop in peaches. Remove peaches and dunk in ice water. The skins then just kinda slip off.
Jars (with lids and rings of course)
Big pot
Jar lifter.
Your jars must be clean and it is best to run them through the dishwasher or heat in the boiling water for 5-10 minutes to ensure they are sterile.
Now lets start by blanching the peaches. This basically makes the skin of the peach slip off. All you do is boil water. Drop in peaches. Remove peaches and dunk in ice water. The skins then just kinda slip off.
Next you will be cutting or chopping the peaches. (Your choice) and I splashed a bit of lemon juice over mine while they sat to keep them from browning.
You next make a simple syrup (did you read my earlier post about lemonade with simple syrup? Same basic idea. This is where you get to make things as sweet or less sweet as you want. But, though it is healthier to not add sugar it will affect the appearance of your peaches. When you opt to not use sugar in your simple syrup, and instead pack in water your peaches will turn brown regardless of the lemon juice additive.
For this batch I put 10 cups of water and 3 cups of sugar. It was not overly sweet but there was way more liquid than I needed.
For this batch I put 10 cups of water and 3 cups of sugar. It was not overly sweet but there was way more liquid than I needed.
Heat up your lids (not boiling but just hot) This makes the rubber part of the lid more pliable so it seals easily.
Pack your jars and pour on the simple syrup. You need to be neat here as spilled syrup will cause a huge pain in the rear when you go to open your jars later, they get stuck. So keep it tidy here.
Now boil and process in your hot water bath. The larger jars here needed 25 minutes so I just let the smaller ones continue to process past thier 20 minute time frame to leave them all together until the 25 mark.
Aren't they pretty?
