Excess apricots - what to do?

[Octave]

So we recently discovered a pretty stellar apricot tree on our property - quelle surprise!

About a third of the tree is ripening quickly, looks to be peaking by the weekend (we ate one last night and it was delightful, though still just a bit tough). Since neither my wife nor I can possibly eat our body weight in apricots, I'm wondering what to do with them. We both love making jams, and will happily do that but I have two problems

1) the tree is ripening in stages, looking to be about a week or ten days apart. Is it possible to break down and freeze part of the harvest and then combine it with the fresh stuff ten days later to make a massive batch of jam for canning?

2) I have no idea what else to do with apricots. I'm not a big fan of dried fruit, so that's out.

Any suggestions of what to do with a massive haul of apricots? Rough calculation after weighing two of them last night and extrapolating for the amount on the tree is around 20kg.

[Too Tall]

reconsider dehydrating. After you have ignored that how about you borrow a couple massive pots and make up a huge batch of apricot / almond jam and gift / exchange that with friends this coming holiday season? Here is a guide I've used:
Apricot and Almond Jam @ Not Quite Nigella
PS - Step #2 is key and do not use anything like Pectin it has a terrible mouth feel. For extra credit include some of the apricot pit insides (also called almonds) in each jar but only one or two for flavor. They contain hydrocyanic acid. Food with a little danger, nice?

[Octave]

That's a good looking recipe - definitely on the short-list of solutions now. We make a lot of jam from foraged figs around here, and occasionally from fruit-stand goods when the prices make it hard to resist and never use anything like pectin.

[warning: dork content ahead] And yeah, hydrogen cyanic (HCN; or hydrocyanic acid; or prussic acid) is nasty stuff (though vital to the evolution of life on this planet) in high concentrations. Stone fruit pits actually contain amygdalin, which is converted to HCN during digestion. The good news is that apricots, which are actually on the high-end of amygdalin/HCN concentration with regards to other stone fruits (cherries, peaches...etc.) actually only contain about 7mg per stone. A 68kg human wouldn't reach a toxic dose (not lethal, but toxic) until just over 700mg. So unless you're eating 100 "almonds" you'll be alright.

The HCN (which, thanks to the cyanide ion actually has a lovely smell) is a pretty sensitive compound, so it breaks down easily. Last time we had a big harvest of peaches we collected all of the stones, cracked them and took the almonds, then put about 50 almonds in just enough 200 proof EtOH to cover them. A month later I ran the solution through a GC/MS in lab and found no presence of cyanide BUT it retained the lovely smell and flavor. A couple of drops in a cocktail is a treat - tastes like orgeat syrup! You can also roast the almonds (which breaks down the HCN very quickly) until light brown, crush them and mix with a touch of sugar to taste and use it a nice ice-cream topping. We're big on having a no-waste kitchen, so little projects like that are fun.

[Too Tall]

I love the smell also and we are both geeks. On occasion I still run a soxhlet extractor when I find enough wild mint or as you say "the right price" ;)

Soxhlet_mechanism.gif

[j44ke]

If you were in the Czech Republic, the answer would be easy - meruňkovice or apricot liquor. Quite a few small towns in Moravia have distilleries where you can take your extra apricots and get back what looks like water but definitely is not. Maybe there are the same facilities in France?

[Octave]

If you were in the Czech Republic, the answer would be easy - meruňkovice or apricot liquor. Quite a few small towns in Moravia have distilleries where you can take your extra apricots and get back what looks like water but definitely is not. Maybe there are the same facilities in France?

Yum! I'll have to look into similar facilities. But a quick google did show me this. I always trust Serious Eats, and this seems easy enough. On the list!

[guido]

There is no such thing as too much apricot preserves...

[Octave]

I guess the sub-question I have here is: can I harvest incrementally, as fruits reach peak ripeness, then break down and freeze the flesh to save until I have enough to make a gargantuan jam/preserves batch? I don't want to be making a few jars here and there, but all 20+kg are not going to be ready on the same weekend, obviously.

[Too Tall]

I guess the sub-question I have here is: can I harvest incrementally, as fruits reach peak ripeness, then break down and freeze the flesh to save until I have enough to make a gargantuan jam/preserves batch? I don't want to be making a few jars here and there, but all 20+kg are not going to be ready on the same weekend, obviously.

Yes. I'd drop them in boiling water, slip the skins than freeze. Bacteria and such.

[j44ke]

You can definitely make a liqueur with the apricots, but here is what looks to be a decent how to for distilling them into brandy:

Distillique Beverages (Pty) Ltd - Apricot brandy - step-by-step with photos

There are obviously various risks like the fermentation urn exploding or the still exploding/catching on fire or ending up with something that makes everyone go blind, so that's why our friend's dad in Breclaw took his apricots to the local distillery for a private run. I don't drink, but my wife has become a connoisseur of spirits and she treasured the bottle that our friend gave us. Another friend of ours also loved meruňkovice, and we used to joke that he could smell it from his house 2-3 miles away whenever my wife opened the bottle. She'd sit down for a nip on some nice evening in the summer, and our doorbell would ring! Guess who!

Traveling around I've learned that every place has its moonshine, and distilling must have been one of the great Eureka! moments in human history when someone figured it all out.

[Too Tall]

I think Jorn spent time in lock up.

[j44ke]

I think Jorn spent time in lock up.

My Dad is a chemist, and there was a period of time when my parents thought it would be a great education for me to go to work with my Dad on Saturdays. Of course, I found the still (made out of high quality lab glass) in the corner of the grad lab, and a grad student happily explained how it worked. So I guess it was a great education but not perhaps the one my parents imagined and otherwise it was a bit like lock up.

Then later I went to Reed College for a year.

[ericpmoss]

In 1975, Mom picked a bunch of cherries, pitted them, sugared them and put them in the deep freezer. 30 years later she made some jam for me and it was fantastic. I'd bet that if you vacuum-packed sugared/lemoned/peeled apricot halves, you'd have a few decades to think of all the options -- jams, candies, Linzer tortes, custard tarts, ice cream, braised meat and fowl, maybe even freeze-drying and chocolate-dipping. Oh, and stews:

[Octave]

Wow, thanks for all of the great ideas! I'll be sure to update with our final products.

Here's the lovely tree of interest.

Attachment 102425

[Octave]

and a little update - 4,5kg of apricots harvested. Skinned, pitted and froze them all last night.

Attachment 102582

[sk_tle]

You know what to do.

Abricotine is one of our area's specialty.

[Octave]

Another year, another glut of apricots. Last year we ended up trading a lot to neighbors and then freezing about 10kg. They made for good smoothies. But this year we entered the preservation thunderdome and got out sh*t together.

Enter: the dehydrator. First 5kg were quartered, given a 10min soak in apple juice with a squeeze of lemon, then dehydrated for 14hr at 60C. Lots were consumed immediately in muesli and in jersey pockets (beeswax wraps ftw) and about half were vacuum sealed to enjoy later this year, when fresh apricots are nary in sight. But woah, big revelation this last week-ish: fruit leathers. Washed apricots (10min in NaHCO3) were de-pitted then tossed in a blender with 1T of fresh lemon juice for every 4C of fruit. Spread into thin layers on parchment in the dehydrator, 12hr at 55C and you've got fruit leather. Stacked between parchment sheets and vacuum sealed these are good for ages, though lots have already become ride food. Their heat-resilience will be tested in the coming weeks with a bikepacking trip into Spain, reports shall be made.

In any event, fruit leathers are definitely the best way to deal with this excess. We also did this with our loquat tree (those that we couldn't eat) earlier this year, plus the excess from our strawberry patch and have done one round from the fig tree. The pomegranate tree is showing some serious fruit, so more experiments will be made. Drying times vary between fruits, but the gist is basically the same and the results are t-o-p.

[mzilliox]

pie filling. last year i had well over 100lbs of peaches. we made peach everything, from bbq sauce to pie filling. still have one or 2 bags of pie filling in the freezer too

[JoB]

That's a good looking recipe - definitely on the short-list of solutions now. We make a lot of jam from foraged figs around here, and occasionally from fruit-stand goods when the prices make it hard to resist and never use anything like pectin.

[warning: dork content ahead] And yeah, hydrogen cyanic (HCN; or hydrocyanic acid; or prussic acid) is nasty stuff (though vital to the evolution of life on this planet) in high concentrations. Stone fruit pits actually contain amygdalin, which is converted to HCN during digestion. The good news is that apricots, which are actually on the high-end of amygdalin/HCN concentration with regards to other stone fruits (cherries, peaches...etc.) actually only contain about 7mg per stone. A 68kg human wouldn't reach a toxic dose (not lethal, but toxic) until just over 700mg. So unless you're eating 100 "almonds" you'll be alright.

The HCN (which, thanks to the cyanide ion actually has a lovely smell) is a pretty sensitive compound, so it breaks down easily. Last time we had a big harvest of peaches we collected all of the stones, cracked them and took the almonds, then put about 50 almonds in just enough 200 proof EtOH to cover them. A month later I ran the solution through a GC/MS in lab and found no presence of cyanide BUT it retained the lovely smell and flavor. A couple of drops in a cocktail is a treat - tastes like orgeat syrup! You can also roast the almonds (which breaks down the HCN very quickly) until light brown, crush them and mix with a touch of sugar to taste and use it a nice ice-cream topping. We're big on having a no-waste kitchen, so little projects like that are fun.

In Austria we make jam and Marillenknödel -- the latter being a fresh cheese dumpling filled with an apricot and covered with spiced, sweet, toasted breadcrumbs. it's amazing. you can use frozen apricots.
putting the pit in the jam definitely works and I do this with apricot.

During cherry season, i pit cherries, put them up in vodka or bourbon with a slice of lemon and separately, put up the pits with vodka. turns a beautiful red and the almond smell is amazing!

[slwrnu]

I am also in Austria, some of the time, and where my place was built used to be an orchard, so there are many plums, pears, apples and marillen in the garden. So the locals come in in the Autumn, harvest the fruit, make jam and fruity things, and schnapps of course, and we all share the outcome. We also share with older locals who are unable to climb the trees. Last year was a bumper crop, and this year is shaping up to be even better, hot and now a bit wet. So share what you do not need.