Canning to Preserve Peaches in Mason Jars

Canning peaches is a fantastic way to have tasty treats for a very long time.

With so many peaches rotting and going to waste, this is a great thing to be able to do.

1. We always start by putting our jars and rings into a dishwasher on the sterilize setting. If you don't have a dishwasher, you can simply place your jars in your boiling water canner and bring the water to a boil for 10 minutes. We leave them in the dishwasher until we are ready to use them... because you want them to be hot.

2. Place the lids in a small saucepan and heat to a simmer, but don't boil.

3. Wash your peaches by rinsing in a colander.

4. Place them into a pot of boiling water and blanch for 35 to 65 seconds.

5. After blanching, place them into a ice water bath to keep them from cooking.

6. Then the skins just slip right off. If they don't slip off, you may need to put them back in the boiling water for 35 more seconds. If they still don't slip, your peaches might not be ripe. Put a ripe banana in the box and check them the next day. The banana usually does the trick and the peaches ripen right up.

7. Make a syrup. We like a light syrup... because we are pretty sure we get enough sugar from other places. We use 9 cups water to 2 1/2 cups sugar. Bring it to a boil in a medium saucepan.

8. We use a cold pack method... Put your quartered peaches face down in your hot and sterilized bottles. By face down, I mean the pit side down. We pack our bottles with peaches just to the line of the lip of the bottle (the end of the curve at the top.) It's good to pack them fairly tight... without squishing them, so they aren't as likely to float.

9. Now carefully pour your hot syrup into the bottles until your peaches are covered. Leave a 1/2 inch of space at the top of the bottle... no more, no less. You sometimes have to adjust here by adding or taking out a peach to reach the 1/2 inch mark.

10. Using a butter knife, slide it down each side of the bottle to remove any air bubbles.

11. Now use a clean damp cloth and wipe around the rim of your bottle.

12. Place your lid centered on the bottle and screw on the ring. I screw it finger tight. You don't want to over tighten the lid. (I don't know why, but I'm sure there is a good reason.)

13. Now place your bottles into the rack of the canner. Place every other bottle across from each other so you don't tip the rack over. The water in your canner can be pretty warm, but not at a boil when you put your cans in, or you'll break a can. I fill my canner about half full of water. Then I keep a another pan of hot water on hand to pour in if needed. You want your jars covered with about an inch of water. Now turn your burner up to the highest heat.

14. You don't start timing them until the water reaches a vigorous boil. That's the other nice thing about canning with a friend: There are two people to watch when the pot starts boiling instead of one. In my case that is a serious advantage, as I would forget my head if it weren't attached. Because we are at high altitude and because we can our peaches the raw pack method... we process quarts for 40 minutes. Once you have started timing you can turn the heat down a bit to maintain a gentle boil during processing.

15. The other wonderful thing about canning with a friend... the cleanup goes twice as fast.

16. Once your jars have processed, carefully remove them from your canner and place them on a dishtowel to cool.

You should have about an inch in-between jars, but it doesn't look like we followed that rule!

Oh well, nothing is better than seeing all those jars in a row. We leave them on the counter until the next day. After 24 hours, make sure to unscrew the rims and check the seals... the lids should be concave and should not flex up and down if the center is pressed.

If you have a jar that didn't seal, put it in the refrigerator and eat them. Because we have very hard water, we have to clean the jars off before putting them in your pantry.