best way to put up plums?

[mary]

What is your favorite way to put up plums?  I have about a zillion mostly small cling plums.  I like putting them up as juice but haven't hit on a really efficient way to juice them.

What do y'all do with plums?

[Deleted]

We have some small thin skin Oriental type plums here, so good just canned, pit and all. Very juicy, they make a lot of juice in the jar. Put in refrigerator, eat. Italian and Brooks are dried, cut in half and pitted or dried whole....James

[mary]

James, do you can yours with sugar? The Ball Blue Book calls for a heavy syrup, I think, doing this, but I much prefer to put them up without sugar. Do you have an opinion on that?

[Skandi]

Jam, jelly, wine.. all the ususal suspects. I love plum jam, if the plums are small enough a cherry pitter works well to get the stones out, and a lot faster than a knife (just wrap them in cloth and boil with the fruit, flavours all wrong without them) My aunt makes a plum sauce. it's a kinda cross between a ketchup and a chutney, slightly oriental in style, but great with cheese or ham.

[Deleted]

These we have, are so sweet on their own. We don't can any fruit with sugar, we make sure fruit is very ripe, can in its own juice or in pear juice. We have a juicer, bottom steam pan, center juice pan with a hose out side, bottom. Hose has a clip to stop the flow. Big fruit pan on top. Steam and mash fruit with potato masher to make juice. We only can blackberry and raspberry juice for syrup and jelly. We do can the excess pear juice.

Many people add water to grapes and can, we juice grapes, add to grapes and can. We then thin as needed, takes less jars, thus less energy, jars and time. Same for plums, peaches and cherries. We also make a lot of fruit leather out of fruit juice too....James

[gracielagata]

I make jelly with them.
To pit them, I go the easy, albeit highly messy route- I just put a bowl full of clean plums on the counter and dive in with clean hands and remove the pits by squeezing all around until I get them all.
Looks like a crime scene when I am done, but it is effective.