Annual Peach Canning Madness

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 by Clint.

Every year in early September I am possessed by the peach spirits and descend into madness. With 3 1/2 bushels of peaches at the ready I began my canning frenzy.

It must be their soft, velvety beauty that calls to me like Sirens…

The initial step is to parboil a batch (I do 8 at a time in a pasta pot) for about 30 seconds to loosen the skins.

They are immediately dumped into very cold water to stop the cooking process.

Then I “slip” the skins off. Ideally the skin comes off easily, but I found that with over 90% of them I had to do a little coaxing and peel them a bit with my fingernails. This is the most time consuming and labor intensive part.

Once peeled, the peach is broken in half and placed in a large pan of “sauce.” Most people use white sugar, but I prefer to use a healthier and tastier (and more expensive) alternative — concentrated white grape juice. I also added honey to half of the batches for a little variety.

After 6 batches of skinned peaches (48 total) The peaches and liquid are transferred to a large cooking pot and brought to a boil.

Once they are hot, they are ladled into hot sterilized quart canning jars and sealed.

The canner (the very large pot on the right above) can hold 7 quart jars at a time, which is just about right for the batch that I prepare. The jars are placed on a canning rack and lowered into the rapidly boiling water where they will remain for 30 minutes with the pot covered.

The jars are then removed and left to cool on a towel for 24 hours. After the first hour I carefully check each one to make sure it is sealed properly and that the lids don’t “pop” when I press down on them.

After 5 days of many hours each day I ended up with 61 quarts! I spent another 2 days making 20 pints of peach and peach/blueberry chutney. The chutney is even more work as I have to grind the spices, garlic and ginger. Instead of sugar in the chutney I used honey. Everything came out looking and tasting great so I was rewarded for my labors and I am now in the process of making the long journey back to sanity :-).

Here are all the “fruits” of my labors:

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