Canning Cherries
Canning cherries is one of my favorite ways to preserve these sweet summertime jewels. They're delicious in all my winter baking, and they're tasty right out of the jar, too!
Ingredients
- Fresh cherries
- Water apple juice, white grape juice, or syrup (optional)
Instructions
- Choose firm, juicy cherries like Bing, Rainier, or Montmorency with the ideal color for the type. Make sure the cherries are sweet and ripe before canning; avoid overripe or underripe fruits for the best results.
- Either pit or leave the cherries whole. You can use a pitter or the paperclip method to remove the pits. Dip pitted cherries in lemon juice and water to prevent discoloration. If you're not planning to pit the cherries, prick the skins with a clean needle to prevent discoloration.
- Prepare your syrup by adding 3 ½ cups of water, syrup, apple juice or white grape juice to a stockpot and bringing it to a low simmer. Add the blanched cherries for the hot pack method. Bring to a boil, simmer, then load into the jars.
- For the raw pack method, pack the jars with raw cherries, then pour the liquid over the jars.
- Check for ½" headspace. Wipe the jar rims, then add the lids and bands. Tighten fingertips tight.
- Water bath hot-packed quarts for 20 mins, raw-packed quarts for 25 mins; pressure can at 6 lbs pressure for 10 mins or 5 lbs for weighted-gauge.
- For a pressure canner, allow the canner to pressure, then remove the jars. The jars can be removed from the water bath canner as soon as the canning time has finished. Let the jars rest for 24 hours, check the seals, label, and store. See guidance in the article for elevations above 1,000 feet.
Notes
You'll need about 10 to 12 pounds of cherries for a canner load of 9 pints, or about 17 to 18 lbs of fruit for a canner load of 7 quarts. I tend to scan them in pints, as that's how we use them, but you can use smaller jars (half pints), which use the same canning time as pints, or full-sized quarts, which take more time in the canner.
Cherries cannot be canned in half gallons or any jar larger than a quart.
Syrup for Canning Cherries
It's perfectly fine to can cherries in water or fruit juice (apple or grape), but most people prefer to can cherries in syrup to help maintain their natural sweetness and flavor. Cherries canned in water taste washed out, as some of the natural sugars in the cherries go into the water in the jar. I like to can cherries in extra light syrup, which doesn't make them any sweeter, it just maintains their natural sweetness. The syrup is about as sweet as the cherries are, so they're just preserved (not candied). That said, you can use any type of sugar syrup you like, all the way up to heavy syrup for something that's more like a Merichino cherry. Here are the sugar amounts for various canning syrups for a canner load of 9 pints:- Extra-light syrup: 3/4 cups sugar to 6 1/2 cups water
- Light syrup: 1 1/2 cups sugar to 5 3/4 cups water
- Medium syrup: 2 1/4 cups sugar to 5 1/4 cups water
- Heavy syrup: 3 1/4 cups sugar to 5 cups water