North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Don Yellman <don.yellman@webformation.com>]

Dianne:

1. It sounds as if you did everything right in freezing your sweet cherries 
(except, of course, not pitting them first), right down to dusting them with 
sugar which helps preserve and inhibit browning.  I think I can assume you 
are storing the cherries in a deepfreeze - without auto defrost - not the 
frozen section of a refrigerator, which is not intended for long-term frozen 
storage.  Getting all the air out of the freezer bag before sealing is also 
important.

2. Although we have frozen many quarts of sour cherries (Montmorency, Meteor, 
Northstar), I have had only one experience freezing sweet cherries, and that 
will be the last.  I concluded that the flavor of sweet cherries is just too 
delicate to successfully survive the freezing/thawing process.  I froze a 
dozen quarts of an old yellow variety called Governor Wood (similar to Royal 
Anne/Napoleon), and, while these little cherries are a delicious treat when 
fresh off the tree, after freezing they seemed lifeless and insipid, although 
they kept their color pretty well.  What color were yours before they turned 
gray?  It seems that very low acid fruits don't freeze well, and, although 
peaches may taste very sweet, they still have enough acidity to produce a 
fine frozen product.  We have never been disappointed in frozen peaches.  I 
do not exclude the possibilty that there may be certain sweet cherry 
varieties that will hold up under freezing better than others, but I don't 
know w
hich of them that might be.  It is certainly not the soft yellow/pink types.

3. If you want to freeze a cherry with many delicious culinary uses, you 
might want to plant a sour cherry tree.  I can't list all the things you can 
make with sour cherries, but pies, cobblers, and cheesecake are the first 
things I think of.  We also heat them up with a little more sugar and tapioca 
and eat them as sauce, and my wife makes sour cherry bars from a recipe that 
her mother used.  All of our cherries are frozen in one quart ziplock bags, 
since that size seems most appropriate for what we can consume in one or two 
meals, and if you want to make more than one pie for Christmas dinner, take 
out two bags.  Gallons would be too large.  Color and flavor of frozen sour 
cherries is excellent, and we have inadvertently left some in the freezer 
more than two years with no loss of quality.

4. We have always used a plunger type pitter made by the Glass Company of Germany, purchased originally from Mellinger's catalog nursery.  Now the German models are less commonly sold as the value of the dollar wastes away, but knockoffs from Taiwan and China have appeared on the market at about the same price - around $20.  These pitters are fast, efficient, and durable.  You can wear out the little rubber insert that grabs the pit, but these are available as replacements.  We have also worn out a couple of plunger springs, which can become weak after long use, but these can be replaced as well.  For many years, we processed more than 30 quarts of cherries every season with this pitter, but it is less now as I have cut down my old tired Montmorency tree, as well as one of the Meteors.  These trees are good for about 25 years, and next spring I will be planting some new sour cherry trees on Gisela 5.  These should begin to bear quickly, and keep tree size down so I will not 
have so far to fall from the ladder.

5. We also dry 6-8 quarts of sour cherries every season, although drying is a 
bit of a messy and time consuming process.  The dried cherries are like 
little bombs of cherry flavor which my wife likes to mix in her oatmeal.  
Perhaps drying would be the best alternative for your surplus sweet cherries, 
as the drying process seems to concentrate rather than dissipate flavors.  
You will need a very good cabinet dryer to process cherries because of their 
high moisture content, and you may be surprised at the small volume of dried 
cherries resulting from many quarts of pitted cherries, but they are so good 
they are worth the trouble.

6. Unfortunately, I can't think of a good solution for your 5 gallons of 
unpitted frozen sweets.  I am afraid if you tried to run them through a 
pitter after freezing you would produce cherry mush.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA  
--
Please note that my email address has changed.  It is now 
don.yellman@webformation.com