Preserving summer apricots for winter breakfasts

 

It feels good to be writing '1/25' with a permanent marker on the jars of the first batch of preserved apricots for the New Year. While not a great yield thanks to fruit fly, 10 bottles, it's still 'three weeks of breakfast fruit, only 49 to go' as Duncan sees it. We usually work our way through bottled apricots, plums, apple, and pear throughout the year and it greatly reduces the amount of fruit that we buy. 

Every summer before bottling our first fruit I re-read some of our go-to references, including hand me downs from mum and dad, 1980s articles saved from The Land and Hobbyfarmer magazine. A game changer was a gift of the 1953 nineteenth revised edition of 'Fowler's method of bottling fruits and vegetables' by Joseph Fowler when managing director of Fowlers Vacola Manufacturing Co Ltd.

This small book recommends the best sized bottles for different fruit and describes how to pack fruit and vegetables to achieve a 'pleasing result' when seeing bottled fruit through the glass. When I started following Fowler's instructions Duncan described my bottled fruit as 'CWA-worthy,' the highest compliment you can pay a preserver.

Following Fowler's instructions I cut our apricots in halves, removed the stones and packed them cut side down, overlapping in layers, into a little water, topping up to leave a 3 mm gap from the rim of the #31 bottle. 

Fowlers Vacola's more recent publication 'Secrets of successful preserving, an Australian Guide' is also helpful for reminders on bottling and processing. It's a long time between summer harvests. Some of the helpful hints include:

1. Pack into a little water to reduce air pockets;

2. Use a pitting spoon to remove stones and discoloured flesh (when preserving large volumes this can save RSI on your fingertips and fingernails);

3. Use a packing stick to help position fruit;

4. Leave packed fruit for a few minutes to release air bubbles before attaching rings, lids and clips;

5. Use a skewer to release visible air bubbles;

6. Soak rings in hot water for a few minutes before stretching around bottle rims;

7. Use bottle tongs to safely remove hot jars from the preserving unit (or pot) and avoid scalding your skin.

We're having a lot of conversations with customers in the shop and over the phone about what they are harvesting, weather challenges, and pest control. Our daughter and son-in-law are growing fruit and vegetables in their urban backyard at Newcastle and posting photos of their harvests on socials. It feels like we're all in this together and it's fun to share experiences and recipes. I'll park our 2022 blog post How do I get into preserving? here in case it is useful.

We're now keeping an eye on our cultivated plum trees. It's only a matter of weeks before we'll be halving, pitting, bottling and adding them to the pantry marking the jars with '1/25'.

 

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