CANNING FRUITS
Capture the freshness of apples, peaches, and berries and savor their natural sweetness year-round. Because fruits are high-acid foods, they are easy to can with a boiling-water canner.
Capture the freshness of apples, peaches, and berries and savor their natural sweetness year-round. Because fruits are high-acid foods, they are easy to can with a boiling-water canner.
Always start with perfectly ripe, unblemished fruit without bruises or cuts. Wash the fruit in cool tap water. Remember, some fruits such as berries are fragile, so handle gently. Never soak the fruit; soaking may cause the loss of nutrients as well as flavor.
Once peeled or cut, many fruits will darken or discolor. To prevent fruits such as apples and pears from discoloring, treat them with ascorbic acid color keeper. Look for it in the produce section or with the canning supplies in the supermarket. To use the ascorbic acid color keeper, follow package directions.
You also can treat fruit with lemon-water. Place fruit in a solution of ¾ cup lemon juice and 1 gallon water. Drain the fruit before continuing.
Fruits can be canned with or without sugar. Sugar helps fruits to hold their shape, color, and flavor, but you can safely can them without sugar. Sugar may be mixed directly with the fruit or added as a syrup made by boiling sugar and water. The concentration of sugar can vary from very light to heavy. If you choose to can fruits with a syrup, select the syrup that best suits the fruit and your taste. Generally, heavier syrups are used with sour fruits and lighter syrups are recommended for mild fruits. See Canning Basics for more information about syrups. Fruit juice can be heated and used as the liquid for canning and will provide sweetness. Avoid adding artificial sweeteners because the high heat required for processing imparts a bitter flavor.
Many fruits can be canned using either the raw-pack or hot-pack method. Others such as apples and pears require the hot-pack method.
The raw-pack method is fast and easy and helps preserve the texture of delicate fruit. Uncooked fruit is packed firmly into jars and boiling syrup juice or water is poured over the fruit. The disadvantage to this method is that the food may shrink, causing some pieces to float to the top of the jar.
Apples and pears and other firm fruits must be canned using the hot-pack method. For this method, the fruit is cooked in the syrup or juice and then the fruit and liquid is loaded into the jars. Cooking the fruit first breaks it down more and eliminates air so the food is less likely to spoil and the fruit won’t float. Also, more fruit can be packed into a single jar. Refer to the chart for specific directions for individual types of fruit.
If the peaches, nectarines, plums, or apricots that you purchase are not quite ripe, place the fruit in a brown paper bag on the counter for a day or two. Be sure to check the fruit daily; it can go from perfectly ripe to overripe quickly.
