Roasting peaches instead of boiling before canning?

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Permalink Reply by Pat Johnson on July 20, 2011 at 9:54am

Roasting would be fine for heating the peaches but dipping them in the hot water allows you to easily slip the skins off. Do you intend to remove the skins? How? Either way I would hot pack the peaches. It keeps them from floating and is the best/preferred practice. That would require you to re-heat the peaches if you cooled them to slice first. However, If you chose to roast them a bit (kinda like cooking them down for jam) it would make them sweeter. At the end though, you'd have to put them in a pan/pot and heat them to near boiling to be able to hot pack them. It seems like a lot more trouble to roast them if you intend to can them.

Permalink Reply by Aliza Ess on July 20, 2011 at 4:47pm

Thanks for the advice Pat! I think roasting the peaches will probably make the skin slip off too. Seems like the warm roasted peaches would hot pack just as well since they're pretty soft when roasted, especially once I pour some warm sugar syrup over them. Hmmm... I'll let you all know how it turns out!

Permalink Reply by Pat Johnson on July 21, 2011 at 8:52am

It might work but I think the reason the dipping in boiling water works so well is that the peach itself is still relatively hard allowing you to grip or even squeeze a little when slipping the skins.  I think you'll be fine with the roasting and pouring hot syrup over them when hot packing. Let me know how it works with the roasted method. I'm always ready to learn new stuff.

Permalink Reply by Cornelia on July 25, 2011 at 1:41pm

I like the idea of getting more sweetness by roasting. Works well for tomatoes, dunnit? Looking forward to hearing how it went, Aliza!

Permalink Reply by Pat Johnson on July 25, 2011 at 1:49pm

Maybe slipping the skins traditionally and then roasting would work best. That way you could get the skins off eaisly and without the skins the raosting process would be quicker due to the more efficient evaporation (no skin to hamper the evaporation). It would be kinda like cooking down jamfor more sugar but leaving the pieces whole instead. Either way I too am curious to hear about Aliza's experiment.

Permalink Reply by Aliza Ess on July 25, 2011 at 2:20pm

Aw, sorry to disappoint a bit everyone, but in the interested of time I quickly boiled the peaches and that was it.  Just made a first batch of peaches in syrup (about 5 pints total) and froze a small quart size baggie of mashed cooked peaches. I do hope to roast the peaches soon to try it soon so I will let you know!