# To peel or not to peel?



## HoofPick (Jan 16, 2012)

That's my question. I've made applesauce in the past but have never canned it, just made fruit leather with it. This year I plan on canning about 5 cases of quart jars and would hate for it to go bad. Every approved university recipe I've seen says to peel and core apples because the peel increases the risk of spoilage. There are a bunch of personal recipes I've seen that say it's ok to leave the peel on. 

When I make applesauce I chunk up the apples, core, skins, and all besides the stem and cook it down. When the apples are mostly broken down it gets run through a food mill. The pieces of skins aren't very big and a lot of them actually end up being removed. Does this sound like it would be ok to can?


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## amarlow (Sep 13, 2015)

The method you describe is the same way I've done it for years. Well, almost.

I do core, to remove the seeds, which to my taste buds give a bitterness I don't care for, then chunk the meat, cook it down, run it thru a Foley food mill, funnel most of it into jars, then process in a regular water bath. That which I don't process, say 5 quarts -ish, I put into a large Crock Pot slow cooker with a bit of the right spices. 24 to 30 hours later I water bath process the resulting apple butter.

We've eaten both the apple sauce and apple butter as much as 3 years later, after canning, with no complaints of spoilage. YMMV.

~Allen


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## HoofPick (Jan 16, 2012)

Thanks for the reply. I did my first batch yesterday and everything seems to have turned out fine.


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## Gladrags (Jul 13, 2010)

I never peel the apples, either. The peel gives the sauce a more intense flavor, as well as a nice blush color.


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## arrocks (Oct 26, 2011)

I know the books recommend peeling to reduce the bacteria, the wax often used as a coating on commercially sold apples, or any other contaminants like pesticides. 

But for me it depends on the conditions of the apples themselves. Some may show so much damage peeling would be required. Otherwise a good scrubbing in a mild vinegar bath and cutting out any bad spots is enough for me.


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## HoofPick (Jan 16, 2012)

Arrocks we picked ours from a u-pick place they day before they got processed. They were very clean and in great shape.


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## arrocks (Oct 26, 2011)

Did you ask them about the pesticides or fungicides they use? Both are quite common in orchard management. But it isn't always possible to ask or determine which ones may have been used and they aren't apparent to the eye. So while the vinegar soak and scrub can help reduce them if they were used, peeling them eliminates even more of it.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

I peel for dried, sauce and canned slices. I don't peel for cider, they get washed in hot water with vinegar, then rinsed in cold water. We like our applesauce with body. We add lemon juice and 1 cup water for each quart apples. We peel, quarter, remove core and slice 1/4" thick across the wedge. Cook for 10 minutes (softer types) or until soft (solid types) enough to use a potato masher, mash and turn off the heat. Add cinnamon to taste and stir. Let stand with the lid on, 15 minutes. Mash again, well. Fill jars and pressure can. More tart types get 2 TBS honey/quart and/or 2 TBS of dark brown sugar....James


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## arnie (Apr 26, 2012)

I love my victoro strainer after washing them just steam them for a few mins. and put them through it squeezes the apple through the screen and pushes the seeds n peels out the end .not only saveing time and not wasteing any of the apple but giveing the resulting sause a great smother texure ,also bt speeding up the process you get less oxidation and a better color , at our community cannery we have a big commercial one with an electric motor I did 2 bushels of apples in a few minits , and cooked down and canned 58 pints in just a few hours, I guess I could of fit the peels and stems easyily into a guart jar ; very little waste


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## NEfarmgirl (Jan 27, 2009)

We peel and core our apples with a hand crank apple peeler/corer before cooking. I know a lot of people leave the peels on, but I pop my cooked apple chunks in a food processor to make applesauce instead of using a food mill. It goes pretty quickly that way. I remove the peels because we get organic apples that have had nothing used on them so they are spotty and need to be peeled and have spots cut out. We did get some apples that were from a different source and even after washing we could smell the chemicals on them.


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## HoofPick (Jan 16, 2012)

James your recipe sounds delicious!
Arnie those jars are beautiful!

Here is what I ended up making last weekend with the apples I picked. 22 qts of apple sauce with skins and 2.5 qts of dried apple chunks with no skins.








Today I'm doing another large batch of apples but using my hand crank peeler/corer and discarding the peels and cores. I talked to the farmer and he said they do spray the apples during the year but have not in the last 6 weeks. The spray doesn't bother me enough to dump out the applesauce I already put up. Now I'm wondering if the health benefits of the skins outweighs the negatives of the spray used on them. Not sure how long the residue will stick around.


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## pmondo (Oct 6, 2007)

wow beautiful apple sauce going to have to stop peeling my apples that's the best looking apple sauce I have ever seen


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## CalicoPrairie (Nov 1, 2015)

I would peel if I got them from the store or somewhere that uses pesticide sprays, and if it were just from my own orchard, I would skip peeling since we don't spray.


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