My Friend Dave Macgreggor has a few pear trees that he grew from seed, are not named varieties, and he does not sell at the orchard, but he had a few bushels of those pears he was willing to let go cheap, so I made a trip up there and picked them up yesterday.
They are not real big. Most of them are about 2.5 inches across.
Patti and I carefully quartered and cut out any bug spots, cores, stems and blossom ends.
I poached them in sugar water. For every 1.5 gallons of packed pears, topped with water, I added 2 cups of rough organic sugar.
I am not done canning yet. I think two runs to go in the canner. I am up to 72, with 72-79 in the canner now. Still enough pears for another full run in the pot.
As an FYI, wrapping your thumb in duct tape prior to cutting all of the pears by hand might not be a bad idea. I kind of turned the ball of my thumb into hamburger.
Also, as a note: I did one run in the canner with the pears in brandy. Alcohol boils at a much lower temperature. I had been going with 25 minutes in a hot water bath canner. If I do that again, I am not going to run it with the booze for more than 10 minutes. A lot of the alcohol boiled off.
I also had three jars fail in the canner, requiring me to empty it all and start over with new water, which slows things up. Had two failed seals so far too, and those jars are in the fridge. One sugar water, one brandy.
