How To Can Peaches: My First Ever Attempt
I learned an invaluable lesson in canning peaches today: Do NOT try canning unripe peaches. You’ll wish you’d never been born.
When I started this project earlier today, I was all excited about how easy it was going to be. Everything I read bragged of the joys of canning peaches. You blanch them, the peels slip right off… they practically can themselves!
Right. Liars.
You could have at least warned a girl that the peaches have to be perfectly ripe before proceeding with the canning process. Sheesh! How was I supposed to know they weren’t ready yet?
Well, I for one wouldn’t leave you newbies hangin’ like that. Listen and learn. Trying to peel an unripe peach will be your worst nightmare. Please, for goodness sakes, please, wait until it’s ripe! You’ll thank me.
A peach is just right for canning when you can press on the skin with your thumb, and it leaves a dent. If the peach is rock hard, supposedly putting it in a paper bag with a banana will help speed up the ripening. Either way, just give it a couple of days to get good and ready.
Okay, so now that we’ve got that squared away, lets get on with the fun.
First thing’s first. You’ll need to wash the peaches.
You also want to make sure to have some clean jars, hot and ready. I put mine in the dishwasher to sanitize and keep hot until I’m ready for them. You can also put them into a large pot of boiling hot water until it’s time to fill them. Make sure you have clean lids and rings ready to go as well. Get a small pot of simmering water going to sanitize your lids (be sure not to let them boil).
Next, you’ll want to blanch the peaches. This process makes peeling them a breeze (ripe ones, that is!) Get a big pot of boiling water going, and put 5 or 6 peaches at a time into the water. Don’t leave them long. They only need to be boiling for 30-60 seconds, max.
TIME OUT!
Okay, I have to butt in again. This is another point in which I messed up, so it’s very important that I share this with you. I read on another blogger’s “How To” that if the peaches didn’t peel nicely after the first blanching, just put them back into the water for another 30-60 seconds and the peels will slip right off.
Well, not realizing at the time that my peaches were perhaps not ripe enough yet, and thinking that the problem was simply that I needed to blanch them longer, I decided to let all of my peaches boil for about 2 minutes before proceeding to the next step.
I know, *sigh*, I can hear all of you master canners gasping at me now. Yes, that’s right. I said it. I over blanched.
What actually ended up happening is that the peels still didn’t come off nicely. And then, since they’d been in the hot water so long, the peaches had begun cooking, so the outer layer of peach that is supposed to be firm and smooth, was mushy and slimy and, well, like the inside of a pumpkin. You can clearly see the layer of mushy skin on the peaches in the picture. It wasn’t pretty.
Okay, back to the directions. Where was I? Oh yes, blanching. After your peaches have been in the boiling water for no more than a minute, quickly plunge them into a large bowl or sink full of icy water for about two minutes. You’ll need a lot of ice for this.
Now they are ready to be peeled. If you are lucky, your peels will slip right off. If you are me, you’ll have to use a potato peeler to get most of them skin free.
Next, cut the peaches in half, and remove the pits. I used a melon scooper to remove all of the gritty pink remains from the center of the peaches. I hate biting into that crunchy stuff!
You can leave them as halves, like this, but I wanted to slice them up to save myself another step when I’m ready to serve them. It didn’t take me long, however, to decide I’d rather just leave them in halves at this point! I was so ready to be done.
It is suggested that you treat the peaches to keep them from turning brown. To do this, you can sprinkle them with lemon juice, tossing to coat. Or, you could drop the pieces into a gallon of water mixed with 2 Tbsp salt, and 2 Tbsp vinegar, to keep them looking good as you work.
I started to treat mine, but realized that they had sat so long already, it was pointless really. So, I did not treat most of my peaches. If they turn brown, it won’t affect the taste or quality. They just won’t look as nice.
While slicing your peaches up, you should get a medium saucepan of syrup boiling. You can make a heavy, medium, or a light syrup. You can even just use straight water, though I thought it would be nice to have a little bit of sugar in with my peaches. I opted for the light syrup.
- Light Syrup: 6 cups of water to 2 cups of sugar.
- Medium Syrup: 6 cups of water to 3 cups of sugar.
- Heavy Syrup: 6 cups of water to 4 cups of sugar.
Bring the mixture to a boil for 2 minutes, stirring to completely dissolve the sugar.
When your peaches are all sliced like you want them, pack them into the hot jars. Tap the jars on a towel laid over the countertop so that they pack down tight. Fill the jars to within 1/2 inch from the top.
Next, ladle the hot syrup into the jars. Fill to 1/2 inch from top.
Use the end of a wooden spoon, or something, to remove any air bubbles. Tipping the jar slightly will help.
Wipe the rim of the jars with a clean, wet cloth to remove any stickiness.
Retrieve a lid from the simmering pot of water (I love my lid lifter tool), and place it on the jar.
Screw the ring on. And you’re ready to put them into the canner.
You can water bath can peaches, or use a steam canner like I have here. Processing time is 20 minutes for pints, 25 minutes for quarts.
Once the time is up, remove the jars from the canner and allow them to cool on a rack for 24 hours. After that time, remove the rings and make sure that the lids are secure. If you can easily pull a lid off, stick that jar in the fridge and eat those peaches soon. Write the date on the lids; peaches have a shelf life of 12-18 months.
Some other tips I’ll keep in mind next time around:
I have read another commenter who says that she never peels the peaches before canning. She maintains that once the jars have been hot water bathed, the skins will slip right off of the peaches as you remove them from the jar. Next time, I am definitely trying that!
I also found this tutorial over at Simple Bites to be very interesting. Her method seems so much easier than mine. She doesn’t use hot jars, just clean sanitized ones. And she doesn’t make a syrup. Instead, she packs the peaches about 3/4 full into the jars, then adds about 1/3 cup sugar to each jar (though I’m not sure if this was for pints or quarts). Next, she fills the jars with lukewarm tapwater to within 1/2 inch from the top.
So, my first attempt at canning peaches didn’t exactly pan out perfectly. But, hey, I learned some things, right? That only means that next time will be even better!
Have any other tips you can give us? Any of you can peaches using a different method?
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Thanks for posting your first experience at canning peaches. I have been wanting to do this but hadn’t gotten around to it yet this summer. Your experience and pointers will surely help. Good job!
They look good!! I have just canned my first 1/2 bushel of peaches, too. Since it is around 100 degrees I opted to just use my potato peeler from the beginning so the stove wouldn’t heat the house up so much. I was surprised at how much my peaches shrank, there’s like an inch of syrup at the bottom. They’re still delicious! My total yield was 17 pints actually made it into the canner, the rest got eaten during processing
Of that I ate 1 pint with breakfast and the hubby used 3 to make a cobbler. They’re definitely going fast!
Ah yes, the unripe peaches. What a pain. I’ve had a few of those that I don’t realize until after attempting to peel/blanch. Ugh.
Only things I can add are awesome! About using a scoop for the pit goo. I’ve used a scoop for pear seed area removal, but never thought of that for peaches. I know what I’m doing with my nectarines this weekend…
I never do the hot boiling jars, either. I water bath everything a minimum of 15 minutes, plus they’re all clean when I start anywho. Another neat trick I thought of the other day is making my syrup in the crockpot (a friend tells me this isn’t a new idea after googling it up after I mentioned it). It takes me a while to prep peaches (canning, alone, with four kids 6 and under underfoot is challenging to say the least). So it can take me a day to fill up 5 quarts. Having the hot syrup on hand and warm all day makes it easier – once I have a jar filled I dump in the syrup and it hangs out on the counter until I have a full canner load. I have almost 40qts hanging out on my counter from festivities the last several days, and I’m only getting started.
I canned peaches for the first time last year and it is quite the process. However, we loved them so much (I despise store bought canned peaches) I intend to make about 4 times more than I did last year. However, I did do enough of them to figure out how to move things along a little faster.
I blanch the peaches and then cut them in half. Remove the pit. At this time you can remove the pink part if it bothers you. Typically I can pull the skin off each half in almost, if not completely, one piece. Then I slice them and they are ready to go. If I find a stubborn half I slice it before it’s peeled and just run my pairing knife along the back side of the peach slice to remove the area of the skin that’s sticking.
This is quite a process and your peaches can be out for some time so I treat mine with fruit fresh. Once I get a decent layer I sprinkle a little and give them a toss and continue as I work. If you don’t treat them, they will brown later the longer they sit on the shelf. If you don’t mind, then you don’t mind, however, discoloration can be an indication that things are arye so you lose one of your indicators.
Also, I don’t recommend the second packing method of adding dry sugar and then water on top. I know plenty of people who don’t heat their peaches prior to canning them and they come out fine, so it’s a personal preference. However, I choose to hot pack mine. I add the syrup to the peaches just as it’s starting to boil and I let it sit on the peaches for several minutes while I put my last few pieces of my assembly line in order and make sure things are ready to go. This give the syrup long enough to ‘soak’ into the peaches without cooking them very much which would destroy some texture. However, I find this makes life much simpler because the heated syrup removes air that is naturally found in the fruit and helps prevent floating fruit.
Glad you made it out alive and I hope next year goes better!
Kendra your peaches are beautiful!!!
I got my last box of peaches canned last night and I am tired of looking or even eating peaches for a while
LOL I put up 19 quarts and 7 half pints plus 6 pints of peach butter a total of 2 bushels…I saved my peelings from last nights canning and I am going to try to make peach jelly ( thanks for one of your comments yesterday from Cathy ) One of my quart jars did not seal so I made a Peach pie with it and it was good…
Happy Canning!!!
Holly
Thank you so much for posting, I’ve been wanting to try canning peaches and now I’ll know what to look out for!
Thanks for sharing with us. We can learn from your challenges and it will be easier for your readers. I appreciate your generosity. Enjoy those yummy-looking peaches! daisy
I have unfond memories of my mother canning peaches. She would buy a bushel or 2 on the way home from visiting my granddparents. The next day she would need to can them. She would still be tired from the trip and she would be overwhelmed with fatigue and very irritable. The house would be hot and she would expect everyone to help her, but we didnn’t know what to do. Years later I canned them, too, but never enjoyed the experience. Perhaps my memories got in the way.
Hi Kendra
This reminds me of my first effort at canning peaches! In the end they were all fine & we enjoyed each bottle of them (even though they were also slightly cooked – oops). Thanks for sharing
Renata:)
Thank you so much for posting! I am going to attempt my first canning this yr. I am going to can several different foods, peaches being one of them. We shall see how it turns out. I come from a long family line of canners and the traditions have stopped. Time to start it up again! =) Happy canning!!
I add 1/3 cup sugar and a little hot water in the bottom of each jar along with some fruit fresh. I stir this up and then begin adding the peeled and pitted peaches. When the jar starts getting full, I add a little more hot water to bring it up to the proper head space. This is a simple method and much easier (and less messy) than making hot syrup.
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