raw pack peaches---adding sugar to jar.

12 years ago

My Mom and Grandma always raw packed their peaches and added sugar and then water to the jar, rather than pouring in a syrup. This seems easier to me, and they always tasted great. I don't have instructions for this method though. My Mom can't remember how much sugar she added and my grandma passed away a few years ago. This is my first time canning peaches. This is the first year we've gotten a harvest off of our peach trees. I have frozen some, made 4 batches of jam, an now I want some plain canned peaches. Luckily I planted two varieties so they weren't all ripe at once! Thanks!

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CPeterson

12 years ago

I've canned my peaches and pears this way for years. I generally put 1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar in each quart jar, add some boiling water to the jar, swirl it around to dissolve the sugar slightly, then pack the jar with fruit and add enough boiling water to bring it to the top, allowing 1/2" head space; process as recommended. I've taken the Master Food Preserver training and, although this is not a recommended method, it's perfectly safe. I love this method because I don't have to have a pot of syrup heating on the stove, and I never have leftover (wasted) syrup. Here's how you can determine how much sugar to use to suit your family: pack a jar with as much fruit as you usually do, then, measuring as you go, pour in water to determine how much liquid you generally put in each jar. Now look at the syrup recipe you usually use and calculate how much sugar would go into it if you were making a batch. For example: if you want to make a light syrup that has a ratio of 1 cup sugar to 4 cups water (approx. ratio of a standard light syrup recipe), and the amount of liquid you put into a jar packed with fruit is 1 cup, then you would use 1/4 cup sugar in that jar - ratio of 1/4. If you pack your jars looser, therefore using more liquid, you may want to put slightly more sugar in each jar in order to keep the ratio the same. And if you like a heavier syrup, calculate the ratio of sugar to water and use that same ratio for each jar. It's not rocket science - experiment. Put 1/4 cup sugar in one jar, a heaping 1/4 cup in another and 1/3 cup in another (be sure to mark the lids). When you eat those jars, take note of which ratio you like the best and next year can your jars using that ratio.

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Comments (6)

digdirt2
12 years ago
It is a shortcut that isn't recommended for quality, not safety, reasons. I linked the approved method of canning peaches below and it includes a link to the various sugar syrup instructions.

How much sugar you use is your choice however the less sugar that more the fruit will darken and decline in appearance and shelf storage quality.

Also note that raw pack leads to more floating peaches than hot pack will.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP - How to can peaches
spyfferoni
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks for the link. I used the recipe on that website to process tomatoes and zucchini. It was a great way to use up zucchini and works great as a soup base. I have a ball blue book and I've read over the "proper" way to can peaches. I guess I'm just looking for a short-cut. LOL. I grew up on the "lower quality" raw pack peaches and I thought they were pretty tasty.

Tyffanie
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readinglady
12 years ago
Since it isn't a safety consideration, if you want to can them that way go ahead. You might want to do a few trial jars following the proportions for syrup provided in Ball or on the NCHFP site.

You might also keep in mind that depending upon the years when your grandmother started canning, syrups used to be heavier than they are now. In other words, heavy, medium and light syrups all used to have more sugar than the current versions. I'm guessing that since your grandmother's peaches retained their quality to your family's satisfaction that she went heavier on the sugar end. More sugar contributes to retention of color and texture.

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morz8 - Washington Coast
12 years ago
I'd never heard of adding sugar dry to fruit, but I stumbled across a site just yesterday showing canning them in that way. I have to say, the website (that I couldn't name without looking again to see if I could find it) was well written (grammer etc), well illustrated. The sugar was added when the jars were partially filled, finished with the remaining peaches to fill the jar. Then, I got to the part where processing was described and found something along the lines of (from memory) 'most books will tell you an amount of minutes of about 20-25 but that's more than is needed. Take the jars out of BWB and check, when there is about a space of an inch at the bottom of jar between peaches and the bottom, they are done and you can leave them out, it's usually about 10 min for pts.'

That's where I gasped, closed the site.....:( It didn't go into a saved list.
spyfferoni
Original Author
12 years ago
I didn't want to experiment so I just made a light syrup. My 7 yr old daughter packed the jars for me. I noticed that some of the jars were 1/4 full of just juice from the peaches before I added the syrup. I hope they turn out Okay. They look pretty nice. I also made about a half gallon of nectar. I didn't can it though. I figured the kids will drink it within a day or two. I am very happy that I decided to plant a couple of peach trees a few years ago.