Home Canning Pears ?>

Home Canning Pears


Home canning pears can take a some time, but not a lot of money and they taste great. They taste so much better than store bought and still have all the vitamins. You will need fresh pears not over ripe, a large bowl, jars, flats, rings, a small bowl, a paring knife, table knife, tongs, a large pot or canner, sauce pan, a rack to place inside the pot or canner, a roll of paper towels, a timer and sugar.

Preparation For Home Canning Pears

Pouring hot water into jars to keep them warm for home canning.
Filling home canning jars with hot water to keep the jars hot.

When home canning pears, Jars should be washed and rinsed thoroughly then fill a few at a time with hot or boiling water at least half way to the top of the jar. Jars need to remain hot until they are used. Flats should also be soaking in hot water in a small bowl until they are used. Flats are the flat disc part of the lid of the jar, should never be re-used. Always use new flats. The rings and jars can be used repeatedly.

Before home canning pears, wash them, peel, core and halve them. Place the halves in the large bowl. Reserve the peels and the cores (minus stem ends and seeds) for a great pear honey recipe! Pears are hot packed into the jars. Which means the fruit is hot when placed in the jar.

You will need to prepare your medium simple syrup ahead of time. Combine 2c water and 1c of sugar, mix together in a large sauce pan and heat until sugar is dissolved. Boil the pears 3-5 minutes in the sugar solution.

Place the rack in the pot or canner, the rack should be about half an inch off the bottom of the pot or canner. Fill with enough boiling water so that the water level will be an inch over the top of the lid on the filled jars. The water should be near boiling when the jars of fruit go in the pot. Only prepare as many jars as will fit into your pot or canner at a time. The jars need to stay hot when canning pears.

Home Canning Pears Or Processing Pears

Take a hot jar, pour out the water (or pour it into another jar, if it is still hot), put the halves of pears into the empty hot jar. Fill the jar until you have about two inches of “head” space above the fruit. Then, pour in enough of the hot simple syrup to cover the fruit. Allow for half an inch of head space above the syrup and fruit.

After placing the pears in the hot jar, run a clean table knife down the inside of the jar along the side in two or three places to gently remove any air bubbles that may have been trapped by the syrup.

Wipe the mouth of the jar with a wet clean paper towel. Use the tongs to remove a flat from the hot water in the small bowl. Place a hot flat on the top of the jar and then screw the ring on the top of the flat and jar until the ring is hand tight. Repeat until you have enough jars to fill your pot or canner.

Place the jars of home canned pears on the rack in the pot or canner, bring the water to a rolling boil and make sure that the water is an inch above the tops of the sealed jars. Start your time when the water is at a rolling boil. This should process or boil for about 25 minutes. This is called a hot water bath. Acidic fruit like pears,
plums, peaches and tomatoes can be preserved in a hot water bath.

At 25 minutes, remove the jars with the jar tongs and place them on a dry, heat resistant surface. Make sure not to place them on a surface that is covered in water, this will cause the jars to crack and shatter.

Storage Of Home Canned Pears

After completely cooled, the home canned pears can be labeled – best place to label is on the flat. The jars can then be moved to a cool, dark, dry place until needed such as a cool cabinet, basement or root cellar.

Hints For Home Canning

Run a pot of clean water through the brew cycle of your coffee pot, you can use this always heated water to fill the jars and and pour over the flats.

If it will be some time before your peeled, cored and halved pears will be processed, you can drop them into a bowl of slightly salted water to keep them from turning brown.

You can also process pears in a pressure cooker for approximately 10 minutes for pints and for quarts, after you pack them in
jars, put the flats and rings on –  ALWAYS follow the directions that come with your pressure cooker. The time here is approximate.

See our How To pages for more information on home canning and
food preservation.