Freezing and Canning Peaches for Winter
ByI mentioned that over the weekend I received millions and millions (okay, maybe not millions) of peaches from a lady in town. I’ve been busy preserving them for winter and thought I’d walk through the steps with you.
Please note: These peaches were so awesome and juicy, and since there were so many of them, I felt that none of us needed to hold back on how many we ate. So, as I was standing in my kitchen peeling and slicing peaches, and peach juice was running down my arms…I was also biting into peaches as I worked, because I just couldn’t resist. Therefore, I also had peach juice running down my chin. But with peach juice all over my hands and running down my arms, it’s not like I could do much about my chin, you know? Not one of my finer moments.
Thought you might like to picture that.
If you remember, I was given four boxes of peaches. (I did share a few with some friends.)
In the past, I’ve always peeled my peaches with a knife…and that’s been fine. But I had so many peaches this time, I went ahead and tried this method of peeling, and whoa was it a time saver! Just put your peaches into boiling water for about 30 seconds…pull them out…
And those skins just peel right off!! It was awesome. Except for when they didn’t peel right off, which happened with a few of them for some reason. (Just thought I’d tell you that so that if not all of them peel right off for you, you’ll know that you aren’t the only one!)
(You don’t have to peel your peaches if you’re going to freeze them. They’ll be more nutritious if you leave the peelings on, and it will save so much time too!)
To freeze peaches, just peel, slice and lay the peach slices on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Put the pan into the freezer until the peaches are frozen, about two hours. (Or longer if you forget they’re in there.) Then put them into a freezer bag and you’ve got great peaches for smoothies and slushies!! And cobblers and crisps! (If you feel like skipping this step and simply just putting your peach slices directly into a pan without freezing them individually like this first, you can…but you’ll end up with one big gallon sized frozen peach-sicle, and you may be very frustrated when you want only part of the rock hard peach-sicle for a smoothie. Just so ya know.)
Now…to can peaches…this is what I do. There are other ways to do it…this is just the way I do it! Please be sure to go back and read Canning 101 for the canning basics!
I make a honey/water solution on my stove…which is 2 T. honey to every 5 cups of water. Heat it on the stove and let it sit warm while you prepare your peaches.
Take out a hot jar and put in about 1/16 teaspoon of ascorbic acid to keep your peaches pretty. Just dump it into the bottom of the jar. (Some people use lemon juice)
Ascorbic acid is powdered vitamin C. I get mine at a health food store.
Fill the jar with sliced peaches. Then, use a funnel to pour your honey/water into the jar, to about a half inch from the top. Place a sterilized lid and ring onto the full jar.
Now it’s time to give your full jars a hot water bath to seal the lids. Put your full jars into the water. Once the water is boiling, boil the jars for about 25 minutes. (And yes, this is actually a picture of applesauce jars boiling…I forgot to take a picture of the peaches boiling and I’m too tired to go can more peaches just so that I can go take a picture of the jars boiling.)
Oh, and boil your jars with the lid on the water bath pot…I just took off the lid for the picture. :)
After the jars have boiled for 25 minutes, take them out with tongs…or better yet, this cool gripping tool made especially for jars and hot water baths. Then you get to listen for the caps to seal. I can’t think of a way to blog the way it sounds…but after all your hard work, it sure is a cool sound to hear them seal! (Thhhhp!) (Or something like that!) You can be sure they sealed if you can push down on the top and it is down firm. It takes anywhere from 1 second to 30 minutes for the lid to seal after you’ve taken it out of the water.
Then, just leave your canned peaches out on the counter for a few hours or several days so that you can admire them and smile and feel happy every time you walk into the kitchen and see them. (Okay, that’s what I like to do anyway.) (Because I’m weird like that.)
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I had a friend’s mom tell me how to do the water bath method that is lot less work then most of the instructions, & it works beautifully. She’s been canning this way for at least 30 years!
Run your jars, lids, & rings through dishwasher on high heat rinse & dry. Doing this the day before is a good idea so as to speed the process and not heat your kitchen up so much.
Then take a big roasting pan (the light weight, ceramic kind you put a turkey in) & put it over two burners on your stove.
Put hot water in it, about 1/2 full.
Put the jars in upside down. If you’re really ambitious, you can have two of these going, one on each side of the stove, but then you have no space to process the foods unless you are doing them in the oven or on the grill (yes, I did tomatoes on cookies sheets on the grill for spaghetti sauce & it was awesome!!).
Put the lids and rings in a cake pan on another burner with hot water. It makes getting them out a lot easier later if you put the ring in, then the lid, both facing up, then layer them like that. Do this before the water boils so you can stick your fingers in there to arrange them.
I have a 5 burner stove, so I put the roasting pan on one side, the square cake pan with the lids and rings in the center back, and the boiling pan with the fruit in it on the other side.
Turn on the burners. You need to boil the jars for 20 minutes or so to sanitize. Once this set up is done, then go get your fruit or vegetables to process, and the rest of the canning supplies.
Note: The upside down empty jars suck up the water into them and will leave the pan dry & it will burn if you don’t add more water. (Yes, I learned this the hard way). :) And yes, when you put the filled jars back in right side up, you will have to remove water to keep it from overflowing. I usually just ladel it out into the cake pan with the lids & rings, or into another canner once the last batch of food has been processed.
It doesn’t hurt them to let it boil longer than 20 minutes, but you will have to watch the water levels to make sure there is always water in it.
Once your food product is ready, pull the jars out, set right side up on your counter & fill. Put the lids & rings on, hand tighten. Wearing leather welding/gardening gloves keeps your fingers from getting burnt, but don’t get the gloves wet as then you will really burn your fungers with the heat! I usually wear one glove, and use it to tighten, etc., then use the tools with the bare hand.
As you fill up the jars, you will have to remove water. The tops of your jars will NOT be covered in water, the water only goes about 1/2-3/4 of the way up the quart jars, and sits on the edge of the lid on pint jars. Ever had water leak into a jar and then empty the product into & contaminate your water? This will never happen again unless your jar cracks/busts. Having water over the top of the jars is not necessary. She’s done literally thousands of jars this way, and I’ve done hundreds and it is easier. I do let everything go about 5-10 minutes longer than the recommended processing times. (5 on pints, 10 on quarts). I’ve also never had anything go bad this way, and have had with the total immersion method.
Just my 1 cent. Oh, and if you pour the left over boiling water on your kitchen sponges & rags as you’re dumping it out in the sink at the end, it’s a neat & tidy way to sanitize them easily. :)
Does anyone else do it this way?
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Poke a tiny hole in the skin first and the water gets in there. Helps the skin come off even easier.
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That’s a great idea to poke a hole in the peach!
Do you have to peel the peaches to can them? What happens if you don’t?
Also, has anyone tried steaming them before peeling?
I’ve never canned whole/sliced peaches before and peeling looks like A LOT of work. I don’t peel before freezing, nor for peach butter… :)
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Amy H. The method you are describing is not safe. Most of the time the food processed this way would be fine but there is no guarantee that the jars are not contaminated with things like botulism and processing them this way does not heat the contents enough to kill the contaminants. Please be safe and do not take shortcuts with food preservation!
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Hi Rachel, thanks for the comment. I certainly want to be safe. But I also want to understand – why wouldn’t that heat the contents enough?
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Perhaps I am misunderstanding the method but I don’t believe they would be covered by the minimum amount of boiling water to insure that the contents on the inside of the jars were heated enough during the actual canning part of the process. And, as I said in my original comment, most of the time this method would be fine but you only need to be wrong once to get deathly ill.
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I canned peaches for the first time this year. Great article!
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I canned peaches today for the first time ever! Thank you for the helpful step by step tips. I want to make sure I’m not going to contaminate anyone so here goes- I never heard the “thwarp” sound of the jars sealing. When I checked them, there is no give in the lids, no way to push them down, but I’m nervous since I didn’t hear the sound. Am I ok or are these not safe to eat?
Thanks for your help!
Kim
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Laura Reply:
September 20th, 2011 at 9:32 am
If the seal is down, then they must have “thwarped” while in the water bath. So, they should be just fine!
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We had some fresh peaches and we weren’t able to can them right away. They are peeled, sliced and frozen. Can we thaw them and still make jam? We want to can them and not do a freezer jam.
Thanks…I loved your article!
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Laura Reply:
September 28th, 2011 at 8:15 am
Yes, this should work just fine!
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I canned for the first time this year and loved it! will do again every year now. But I havn’t been able to find anything that tells me how lng the Peaches are good for ONCE you open them? so say we want to just munch on them out of the jar.. how long are they good in the fridge after seal is broken?
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Laura Reply:
October 4th, 2011 at 6:39 pm
I’ve found that they stay good for about 2 weeks in the fridge. :)
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can you do the exact same recipe except use pears?
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Laura Reply:
October 26th, 2011 at 8:11 pm
Yep!
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Hi I tried the method you used to remove the skin but with Golden Queen peaches here in New Zealand. It didn’t seem to work. I think it’s because the skin is so much thicker than the peaches you have used. Unfortunately I am going to have to continue peeling the old fashioned way!
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