SUCCESSFUL FRUIT-PRESERVING WITH MAKESHIFT EQUIPMENT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 92, 28 March 1941, Page 45

SUCCESSFUL FRUIT-PRESERVING WITH MAKESHIFT EQUIPMENT

T is quite possible to do our preserving without any expensive outfit, as our pioneer settlers very effectively proved. The important essential is thorough sterilisation, as the fruit must be heated sufficiently to kill all germ life. At the same time, the air must be forced out of the bottles by heat, and then kept out indefinitely by some kind of airtight cover. Sugar has but little effect on the "keeping" of the fruit. For the rest, stone jars, pickle bottles, and even treacle tins and benzine tins (against all scientific warnings), have been used successfully for years by scores of country people. The Oven Method If you wish to do the preserving by the oven method, first wash all-your odd | jars and tins thoroughly, and then pack them’ with clean, sound fruit, either sliced or whole. Fill to within half an inch of the top with cold syrup or cold boiled water. Stand them in a cold oven, either on an asbestos mat or on a tray of slats of wood nailed together, to protect breakable ones from the direct heat of the oven shelf; cover with old saucers, or put the lids of the tins on loosely. Heat the oven very gradually until, in an hour or so, the fruit begins to shrink. When the shrinkage point is reached, keep the heat steady until the fruit is tender, sometimes only a few minutes. The fruit need only simmer. Filling and Sealing When they are ready, remove the jars one by one from the oven, filling and sealing each before taking out the next. Overflow them with boiling water from the bottle, and remember there must *be no delay between removal from the oven, filling, and sealing. When the lid has been fastened down, wipe off all moisture and run paraffin wax round the join. . If you have corks to fit some of the old bottles, sterilise them in boiling water, drop them into the melted wax, and press them firmly into the filled bottle. Then either paste paper over the top or else paint right over the cork and the join with more wax. Jars Without Lids To seal these, use both paraffin wax and greaseproof paper pasted over afterward. Paraffin wax is cheap and convenient. Melt it in an old saucepan with a lip, for convenience in pouring, and immediately the water or syrup is poured into the jars, wipe round the

~ J mouth to remove any moisture and pour in the wax to a thickness of quite half an inch. Leave unmoved then until quite cold, and if juice has oozed up in the meantime,. more wax must be poured on. Lastly, paste over with greaseproof paper. For jars with screw lids without rubbers, fill up the top of the jar with wax, and also run a little wax inside the sterilised screw lid. When this has set, screw on the lid tightly. The heat of the jar will again melt the wax, and make a complete seal round the screw. Paste over with paper, as a final precaution.