Plum Preservation

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As I have mentioned before, we have a plum tree that gives us upwards of 70 lbs of plums each year in early summer. The last few years I have attempted to can plum halves in syrup. It has not gone well. So this year I tried something new.


Problems with canning

1. With nearly all the jars the syrup leaks through the seal while it's in the canner, which makes me worry about the integrity of the seal, though in practice all the seals have held and I have had no spoilage. I have tried adjusting headspace to no avail.
2. No matter how tightly I pack the plums I end up with a high syrup-to-plum ratio, with all of the plums clustering at the top of the jar and 1-2 inches of syrup at the bottom.
3. Even with raw pack, the plums end up mushy after 20 minutes of boiling in the water bath canner.

So this year I tried freezing instead. I just defrosted the first quart (I figured I ought to wait until local plum season was over before sampling them) and I am moderately pleased with the result.

Advantages of freezing

1. It's easy: Pack plums into container; pour over light syrup to cover; put parchment on top to ensure plums are below syrup level; put cover on container; freeze. I used plastic quart containers from our local ice cream shoppe; we buy a lot of ice cream from them, so we have a ton of these containers.
2. It's energy-efficient. No boiling for 20 minutes, yay!
3. The plums retain their shape and texture better than with canning.
4. It's damn near fool-proof. The only way they can spoil is if the freezer quits.

Disadvantages of freezing

1. It takes up freezer space, which is at more of a premium in our household than shelf space in the garage, where I keep most of my home-canned goods.
2. The containers aren't pretty, so they don't make good presents.

Overall, I'd say that freezing wins. I often give presents of home-canned goods at Christmas time, and what I may do is defrost some of the plums, transfer them to attractive glass jars, and give them away, with instructions to refrigerate and consume them quickly. On the other hand, I only froze four quarts (because I wasn't sure how it would come out) so maybe I will just eat them all myself.

Comments

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It's interesting how many different things you can do with plums and sugar! I make both plum jam and plum butter, and the essential difference is that jam is cooked quickly to a high temperature so that it jells, while fruit butter is cooked for a long time at a low temperature so that it reduces (and caramelizes, yum!). In the U.S., "jelly" is similar to jam except that it's made with clear juice, so you end up with a clear(ish) product with no lumps in it. I think we agree about what curd is -- it's similar to a stovetop custard. I use it to make tarts.