Here we go again, yet another great blog by the most infamous blogger of them all, the Canner Man.  I know you have all been dieing to read the next issue of Gumpa’s Grumpy blog so here it is.

Linda’s friend from work called her the other day and asked her to come over and pick some peaches.  So we went over to get a few on Saturday.  Well….. we ended up picking a hole tree of peaches, about 2 bushels.  Plus enough apples to make 8 apple pie mixes which we froze.  But I digres, we are talking peaches and the all important subject of canning, or maybe bottling.

We got these peaches home then Linda informed me she had thrown the Cold Pack canning bucket away last year.  I don’t know why she did that, we’ve only had it for 30 years and it only had one hole in it were it had rusted out!!!  So whats a lot of water on the floor anyway. LOL.

Well we spent the next two hours hitting every store in Utah Valley trying to buy a new one.  No luck they were all sold out everyware.  We did call around the ward and found a neighbor that had one she had inherited from her grandmother when she passed away.  So at 8:00 pm Saturday night I started the canning process on two bushels of peaches.

So off I went to the races.  Here we are in the early stages, about 10:00 pm.  I finally figured out that if you get a big tub of water boiling, and dump it on the sink over the peaches, then be patient and boil another big pan and add it to the mix, that the skins just almost fall right off the peaches.  So now I was off to my first batch of 7 quarts of peaches.

So… about 1:00 AM.

Here I am dreaming I am in Cozumel Mexico and slaving over the peaches in the sink.

I will say they were great peaches.  They were very large and very sweet.  I got faster as the evening/morning progressed and by 5:30 AM had all 26 quarts of peaches done and all of them sealed.

I tell you what I am GOOD !!!!!

I evening did most of the Peaches in medium surup, but did do one batch in heavy.  I know the medium is more health, with less sugar, but I grew up with my mother canning peaches in heavy surup and I loved the juice.  My favorite is to have toast with butter and dip the toast in the juice, then eat it.  Wierd I know but it makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

So on a family note: I am thankful to my mother for setting a good example of how to can and grow the things we did in the garden at home.  I remember the cherries, apracots,peaches, pickles, relish, and apple sauce that we always had in bottles from the storage room down stairs, as I was growing up.

So…. here I am Suzie home maker, carrying on the tradition.

So the answer is bottle don’t can.  It’s easier!!!!

For those enterested in starting, I used a canner that I have never used before.  The old method is to put the bottles in the Cold pack bucket and fill it with water and start it boiling.  (4 plus gallons of water!!!)

Well the canner I used was developed at Utah State University, (I think) and uses steam to seal the bottles.  It only uses about 6 cups of water and work great.  I would recommend it over the other. (less water faster sealing times and I didn’t have one bottle break do to heat.

Here is the URL to the website you can order it from.  I think it is well worth the 70.00 dollars I paid for it. and it is aluminum so no rust.

http://www.backtobasicsproducts.com/catalog.cfm?dest=dir&linkon=subsection&linkid=119&secid=53

It is the Model 400A