How To Ripen Peaches
Tips on How to Ripen Peaches
The peaches that you find in the supermarket through most of the year are hard as a rock, so everyone needs to learn how to ripen peaches if they are truly to enjoy eating this fruit. A ripe peach is juicy, sweet and full of flavor, but unless you live where there are good temperatures for growing peaches, such as Georgia or California, you will never see baskets of perfectly ripened fruit sitting in groceries stores.
In fact, most orchards still send peaches to market to be shipped across the United States when they are not ripe to reduce spoilage. A ripe peach will be bright on the outside and have a nice deep yellow flesh inside. The skin color will be very bright and you will be able to catch a fragrant peach scent by smelling the fruit.
Today, the most popular peaches are freestone or semi-freestone. That means it is easy to remove the pit as the fruit does not cling to it. These are grown in the United States to ripen anywhere between May and October. However, they are picked for transport well before they are ripe. If they are bright colored and firm, these peaches will ripen in two to three days at room temperature. In the past, unripe tomatoes were routinely shipped and then stored in refrigerated areas. When this is the case, the fruit will never ripen, and the peaches are usually tough and hard before you even get them home.
In the United States, fresh peaches are available from mid-May to the end of October. Through proper selection and then learning how to ripen peaches, these can be enjoyed throughout this period. The task becomes more difficult with the peaches that are available during winter months. Most of these are from Chile.
When you select your peaches in the supermarket, be sure to get ones that are as ripe as possible, firm but not hard, and also choose ones that do not have any too ripe or mushy spots. There should be no discoloration or defects. If you have chosen well, the peaches will ripen nicely with just two to three days of sitting at room temperature.
If they do not ripen in a short period of time, you will need to know how to ripen peaches quicker. One way is to put them in a paper bag. This will help most fruits ripen faster. Putting a fruit in the bag with them, such as an apple or a banana will also hasten the process. These fruits produce ethylene. When peaches have ripened, eat them right away for the best taste. You can refrigerate them for up to a week.
Avoid storing peaches in plastic bags as this can cause fruit decay. Setting them to ripen in direct sunlight can also cause over-ripening and soft spots. Part of learning how to ripen peaches also means learning how to recognize a ripe peach and removing it from contact with the other peaches before they all spoil.
These ways of how to ripen peaches also work well for other kinds of fruit. Once you have this properly figured out, you will never have to eat hard, unripe fruit again.