About 2 years ago I was testing some, at that time the best plunger type, [made in China]
with a little dish, where you put the cherries in, I tried out but wasn't happy because it missed some pits, [sour cherries].
It might have worked better with larger sweet cherries?
I wanted to make sure that no pit end up in the pie, ....you could end up with a expensive dentist bill!
So then I was forced to use a single cherry pitter, where I can see that each pit is accounted for.

Konrad

Konrad, thank you. I am also interested in pitting sour cherries. I was considering plunger type, so your information is very helpful.

Olga

A single pitter, as in a push pin type? I used one of those once, I quickly went out and got a plunger.
I guess I can hear the difference in a pit going into the collection bin because I don't miss.
I don't pit other people's cherries but will lend my pitter. My sister was missing a lot and I had to keep telling her she missed.

I got mine at an Ace Hardware. That's where I find all my time saving harvest gadgets.

I used to have a Liefhart one, but the plastic degraded in a couple of years, and the pitter part broke off--very disappointing for such an expensive pitter.
I went to look for the name of the one I have now--there's no name on it anywhere. (What are their design people thinking?) Anyway, I did a search on Amazon, and by the photo it's an OXO Good Grips. It works really well, but you have to place the cherries one by one, unlike the Liefhart, which was a little machine with a funnel chute.

Here is the Amazon search, you can see what others had to say about all their cherry pitters:

Carla in Sac

Here is a link that might be useful: Cherry pitters for sale Amazon

Good link, Carla!
The OXO is also the second one I got, [beside a cheaper plastic one I had for many years], when I returned the plastic plunger type # 13 in link.
There was actually a problem with it from day one, the plunger was off center, the pits sometimes got stuck to the plunger.

Konrad

Mine is the #13 type. Other than having to make my own pit gasket I haven't had a problem with it and I've been using it for close to 20 years with a break of a few years when borers and wind killed off my trees.
A good gasket takes the cherries off the plunger, a bad one doesn't. If I'm remembering right their gasket was hard and didn't stand up well to the sharp plunger.

I sure wouldn't want to do a tree's worth with anything that I had to handle each cherry individually. I bought one of those and never really used it.

After reading how the affordable cranks work it looks like I'm going to have to sit down and invent my own.

I found this one, for when I win the lottery
:)

Carla in Sac

Here is a link that might be useful: multi cherry pitter

If you look at the link Carla in Sac gave, scroll down and there is another cherry pitter pictured in the center of the screen for about $75. That is the type I use. It is very tough and durable and works great for sour cherries. I just don't have the patience to run single cherries through.

The downside to it is that it will let an occasional pit pass, but often you will see it. It also crushes the cherries so you don't get a pie full of plump cherries, but I really don't see the difference as they still look round although you have all cherry juice around the cherries instead of a mixture of sugar and cornstarch, and I keep all the juice in the pan with the pitted cherries.

Never tried it on sweet cherries, if they somehow evade the canning jar, they don't evade the mouth!

Just remember to tell everyone to watch for pits every time you serve cherries. Never had anyone lose a tooth, but they have crushed a pit a time or two.

I have also used this $75 pitter and beeone described it very well.

Scott

The multi cherry pitter is by sausagemaker dot com; they want almost $300.

A video clip is here

Well, there was a day I tried a recipe that asked for some non-pit olives. I searched forever and found the best way to pit is just to smash the things. Which I did, and it worked. It also was free!!

Tomorrow we are going to one of those "pick your own" cherry farms, and we should come out with 12 lbs. I plan to ferment those babies, and I will SMASH and roll the pits out! I have a nice paint strainer bag in which to do the damage... In the sink of course!!

My wine will be black bing cherry with a kick of lavendar and almond. Maybe a touch of French Oak.

I don't get it. Why do you need a pitter when you can smash for free?
Suzi

>>I don't get it. Why do you need a pitter when you can smash for free?A nice looking cherry pie you make from whole cherries.

The last batch of wine I did, put the cherries, [about 1/4 full] in a bucket and stripped the pits with a paint mixer, [in picture on top of picnic table] / hand drill, it worked very good.

{{gwi:115864}}

Konrad