I took delivery of 11 pounds of ripe Italian prune plums yesterday, after my son’s piano lesson: his piano teacher has a tree that I expect bore 50 pounds of the little gems this summer. There’s another 10-20 pounds still on the tree, and probably as much on the ground under it.
So with all that ripe goodness on hand, I decided I had better find some way of preserving it (we’ll eat quite a few, I’m sure). As with anything else that came out of the home kitchen as opposed to a food lab, there are many variations on how to can fruit, depending on the fruit, the taste of the canner, and other factors. I found this one entertaining but not all that helpful.
As I usually do, I chose a few recipes, distilled out the essentials, and proceeded from there.
The steps are pretty simple: it’s working out the yields that comes with experience.
I used 3 pounds of ripe plums, 6 cups of sugar, and 1 1/4 cups of water. I pitted and smashed the plums in a food processor, then added them to the water and boiled them up for 15 minutes. I then added the sugar and boiled them a few (5 or so minutes) until the mixture was gelling when I tested it on a plate. My grandmother’s who-know-how-old sugar thermometer registered 220º so I called it good. One recipe I saw claimed that plums require no additional pectin, and more recipes that call for other fruits did. So once I saw that things were jelling, I opted to leave it out.
I put a huge stock pot on the stove, added about 6 inches of water to it, and put a steamer basket in there to serve as a trivet (my other trivets aren’t bit enough). I got it boiling.
In the meantimes, I ran a dozen pint jars and lids through my dishwasher with the sani-rinse cycle. Not worth doing as the jars were all new and I didn’t need all of them.
Once I had the mixture jelling and the jars and lids good and hot, I turned off the mixture and ladled the stuff into the jars. It filled exactly four with about 1/4 inch of headspace. I laid the lids on, turned the bands hand-tight, and lowered them into the boiling water for 10 minutes.
I took them out just now, and within a minute or two I could hear the lids popping as the vacuum seal was generated. They’re too hot to touch but after awhile I should be able to test all four lids presently. I had a couple of tastes as I testing the jelling and it seems OK: a little sweeter than I like, but perhaps that will mellow in the jar, post-processing. And it’s not like I don’t have more to experiment with.
The whole process couldn’t have taken much more than an hour, so this may be something I do more of if I can find the raw material cheaply enough. Getting a plum tree of my own seems like a good first step.