How to Preserve Fruit

An over-abundance of fruit, from spring rhubarb to June strawberries to fall apples, provides many opportunities to preserve fruit in one of the many ways available. With a little effort, the pantry shelves and freezer drawers can fill up with a colorful display of nature's sweetness, preserved and stored for the upcoming winter months.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Firm, ripe fruit
• Pectin, powder or liquid
• Lemon juice or ascorbic acid
• Sugar or artificial sweetener
• Large cooking pot
• Glass freezer jars, plastic freezer containers or freezer bags
• Cookie tray
• Pint or quart canning jars

1. Prevent the darkening of fresh fruit by soaking in ascorbic acid before preserving. Add 3 grams of acid to a gallon of water and soak the fruit, draining the fruit before using. Use smaller quantities of lemon juice for the same result.

2. Freeze fruit as it is (unsweetened) or in sweetener for use in pies or as fruit fillings. Use a simple syrup made from sugar and water or add sugar directly to the fruit.

3. Freeze individual fruits like berries on cookie trays until frozen and pack in freezer bags. This makes it easy to use small amounts of the fruit at a time or to eat as a healthy snack food.

4. Use glass freezer jars, plastic freezer containers or freezer bags for quality fruit preservation in the freezer. These specialty containers maintain product integrity under freezer conditions.

5. Preserve fruit as jam, jelly or preserves. Jam has pieces of fruit and preserves have whole fruit. Jelly is filtered and clear.

6. Follow the jam and jelly recipes that accompany purchased pectin. Pectin comes in liquid or powdered form to firm up fruit products. Fruits such as apples, blackberries, crab apples, grapes and plums contain enough natural pectin that added pectin is not necessary.

7. Can fruit packed in a light, medium or heavy syrup. Light syrup has 1/ 2 cup of sugar for every 4 cups of water; a very heavy syrup has equal amounts of sugar and water.

8. Cook apples, pears or peaches in a heavy pot on the stove for a tasty fruit sauce. Allow the sauce to brown slightly for a sweet, buttery version. Freeze the fruit sauce in freezer bags or containers or process in canning jars.

9. Hot pack or cold pack fruit properly to preserve in pint or quart jars. Raw pack or cold pack the fruit into clean jars, pour hot syrup over the fruit and process. To hot-pack the fruit, add the raw fruit to the hot syrup, reheat to boiling, and pack the hot fruit and syrup into jars and process.

10. Use a food dehydrator to dry fruit as individual fruit slices or as fruit leather. Store the dried fruit in airtight containers and store in the freezer as a precaution.

Tips & Warnings

• Substitute honey or maple syrup for sugar when canning fruit for a lighter flavor. Substitute unsweetened apple juice, unsweetened white grape juice or artificial sweeteners when preserving fruit for special diets.

• Buy and use high quality ingredients and storage containers when preserving fruit for the season.

• Process sweetened and unsweetened fruit in a canner for the same amount of time. Only jar size should affect the processing time.

• Allow grape juice to sit overnight in the refrigerator and form tartrate crystals. Decant the juice and discard the crystals.

Resources

• Visit the National Center for Home Food Preservation.
• Consult the USDA Guide to Home Canning.