This is a prolific time in my yard, so I am trying to find ways to make the best use of fruit. Especially, saving for the long winter months so I can benefit from the delicious, healthy, organic fruit and special varieties of fruit from my yard, off season.
I am not a canner. I want to learn, but have not yet. I don't want to add a lot of sugar to already sweet fruit.
We do a lot of dehydrating. We have a good dehydrator that gives temperature. It's great for tomatoes, plums, asian pears, and figs.
We also dry in our sunroom, which runs about 120s in the summer. These are Hollywood plums, which dry to a fruit-leather consistency, sweet/sour and fruity, very different from prunes. I slice them, not dry whole.
Tomatoes of course. The drying concentrates the tomato flavor and sweetness, and they have more taste than what you can buy. If there is more taste, I think the nutrients must be more concentrated too. Photo is a before and an after plate together. These are not paste tomatoes, just regular garden eating tomatoes.
Once they are dry, we put them in bags and freeze. I think that keeps them better. They are excellent to snack on in the winter.
This year I started freezer jam and I am still learning. The best product is the Instant Pectin. Other pectin products need to be dissolved in water, which waters down the fruit. Using Instant pectin, you can just blend the fruit with some sugar and pectin, transfer to jars, and freeze. No cooking. The flavor is intense, really good.
I am experimenting with the amount of sugar. The label calls for 1 3/4 cup fruit, 2/3 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons pectin. For grapes, I used 2 cups fruit, 1/3 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons pectin. These were Price grapes, which have slip skin and seeds. I think the skin is so full of flavor, I kept the skin on. The seeds add crunch, which you might or might not like, but I love it.
This is great on crackers, or peanut butter jam 
sandwich, or on pancakes, or cornbread. It might be possible to use less or no sugar, I have not tried that. Using fresh ripe fruit from home garden, it's really sweet and the flavor is intense.
Freezer Jam keeps 1 year in freezer, or one month in fridge.
I have also made freezer jam using figs, peaches, and Shiro plums, but was not aware of instant pectin, so they had more sugar and water added - still really good but the instant pectin gives more concentrated flavor and allows less sugar.
For jam from Hollywood plums, I cut the plums into large chunks, added 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 1/3 cup sugar, and 2 tablespoons of pectin. Processed in food processor, then pour into jars. Also very good and intense. I am storing them in freezer except when I get out a jar to use.
I think by not cooking the fruit, and not diluting it with water to dissolve the pectin, nutrients are better preserved and concentrated. I don't know if the sugar is required. It's so easy to make, I might try a batch with no sugar at all and see what happens.
Excellent post, Daniel. Yes, I think there's quite a bit of research showing that freezing preserves more of the nutrients than canning. We freeze quite a bit of fruit. My wife cans. We have dried fruit sometimes. I grow a lot of keeper apples and Korean Giant Asian pears. We also try to space out the fruits so we can harvest in different times of the year.
JohN S
PDX OR
Daniel, at what temperature do you dry the fruit? I have an inexpensive dehydrator that does not allow temperature control. For some reason I have it in my head that it heats to 140 degrees, but I haven't tested it.
Is the pectin you are using the same thing as Sure Jell? What brand is it? I did some freezer jams a few years ago and thought them delicious. I later tried to be frugal and bought some bulk instant pectin and discovered an off taste to it. That kind of cooled me on the freezer jam thing. The freshness of the flavor is pretty amazing though.
When I can jam I don't use pectin. I cook the fruit down (and use lots of sugar) until I get the desired consistency. I don't like to use pectin either because it dilutes the flavor. Its like sweetened tea version of the fruit instead of concentrated juice.
The problem with canning for us fruit enthusiasts is that recipes that may have been safe in the past are not necessarily acidic enough when we use unanticipated varieties and pick the fruit when they are fully ripe. The foolproof recipes require the use of bottled lemon juice which I think tastes just awful. My recent breakthrough was to buy a bag of citric acid powder, which has a neutral flavor. I intend to use it in place of the bottled lemon juice for hot water bath canning.
I'd hoped to do some experiments canning my peaches in a light syrup this year but didn't get around to it. I have very fond childhood memories of truly excellent canned nectarines that were better than anything I've had from a freezer.
My wife cans peaches. They are really good tasting. They do lose some of the nutrients though. She uses less sugar than a lot of recipes. I think there is a great balance between how many fruit you want to eat fresh, grafting to spread out the season fresh, canning, drying, storage fruit and freezing. It is really nice to be able to provide organic fruit for my family at incredibly cheap prices and very little effort. Between growing and gathering some stuff wild, it really leads to a feeling of being connected to nature and history. I think the kids are learning a lot about science too.
John S
PDX OR
I don't use a lot of jam, but I do drink a lot of juice. Also I haven't had a lot of time to process my bounty -- I am barely able to pick it, much less make something from it. So I am just mashing it and putting it through a strainer if it has a pit. I pour this mixture into ice cube trays, then put the cubes into freezer bags.
My thought is to drop one or two of these into a glass, add water (and a little apple juice or sugar?) and drink a bit of summer. 🙂 Also would make good smoothies.
I have about 15 large bags filled thus far.
Jafar, I use the Ball Instant Pectin. I can't vouch for effects on flavor - tastes good to me. The pectin is in the photo I uploaded. Needs to be the purple on the label - other colors are non-instant.
I've been drying fruit at 135F. The sunroom is in the 120s, so that is the default there.
I haven't ventured into actual canning yet. The freezer canning is great for flavor, but of course it needs to be kept in the freezer, and only lasts in fridge 1 month.
John, like you I try to space out my fruit too, so there is something ripe from spring to late fall. That makes each month an adventure in the orchard and garden.
Dave M, I sun dry my extra grapes to make raisins. It sounds mundane but home grapes make better raisins than store grapes.
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