Pear season is finally here in west-central Ohio and I, for one, am thrilled at the prospect. There’s nothing my family enjoys more than home-canned pears; served cold as a side dish or served warm over pound cake with a lovely brandy or vanilla sauce. Am I making you hungry for pears yet?
Finding pears is the hardest step, in my opinion. If you have a mature pear tree available, count your blessings! If not, you may have to do some hunting. Sure, you can go to the grocery and buy pears that were picked 4 weeks ago and shipped across the country in a climate controlled box truck. OR you can do a little leg work and find them locally. Watch your neighborhood farm stands; this time of the year, you should be able to find pears for under a dollar a pound. My personal favorite place for finding pears is Freecycle. Last Thursday I posted that I was looking for pears for canning. Last Friday I came home with 4-5 bushels of pears. How’s that for a find???
Once you’ve located your pears, ripening them is the next step. Most of the pears I picked last Friday were on the greenish side; my choices were green pears or pears rotting on the tree. I chose green. To ripen them, I set up a 6 ft table in the basement and spread out the pears with sheets of newspaper between the layers. 4 days later, a quarter of the pears are already ripe. You can accomplish the same thing by placing clean, dry pears in brown paper bags or cardboard boxes for a few days. The outcome is the same; the box/bags/newspapers trap gasses released by the pears and ripen them. Check them daily, for bad spots or rotten pears and remove them immediately. One bad pear can spoil them all! You want pears that are *just* ripe, that yield only slightly to pressure and that are just beginning to smell sweet. Overly ripe pears turn to mush in the canning process.
To can your pears, peel, core and slice them, placing them in a lemon-water bath until you’re ready to process. This will keep the pears from turning brown due to oxidation. Cook the pears in a simple syrup (3 cups sugar + 6 cups water) for 5 minutes and then ladle into prepared jars. Pour the hot syrup over the pears, cap them and process them in a water bath for 20 minutes. You CAN pressure can pears, but I don’t recommend it. They tend to get mushy and turn colors. Water-bathed pears stay crisp and brilliant white.
That’s all there is to it. Pears are super simple to preserve. If you’re a novice canner, there are few foods easier to put up than pear slices in a simple syrup…and few things more delicious! You can find complete directions for canning pears in the Ball Blue Book or online at Pick Your Own. So get out there and find some pears….you’ll sure enjoy them this winter!!
In His Service,
Andrea
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5 comments
Shelly
October 5, 2010 at 9:16 pm (UTC 0)
Andrea
October 5, 2010 at 9:28 pm (UTC 0)
Gen-IL Homesteader
October 6, 2010 at 3:14 pm (UTC 0)
Andrea
October 7, 2010 at 4:59 pm (UTC 0)
Gen-IL Homesteader
October 11, 2010 at 1:12 pm (UTC 0)