Plum de-pitting machine

Hi all, plum season is starting in the south of France and I'm looking forward to many jams again this year. We would like to make it a bit easier by buying a pitting machine (home kitchen size, budget maybe a few hundred max, we're not buying a 10.000 machine). Does any experience on this?  Any recommendations?

I've never seen a plum pitting machine before.  I sure would like one.  The cherry season just finished here and a de-stoner is a great time saver.

I noticed there are two kinds of plums, ones that freestone (the stone easily comes away from the flesh when sliced in two) and ones that don't.  When we process plums, we use the freestone for preservation and the others for eating.  Often the plums can just be torn in half by hand really quickly.

But I am curious to learn about a gadget that will do this for us.  

I have 2 decent size plum trees along my driveway.  These are fully mature, at least 30 to 40 years old.  Never pruned until I bought the place 13 years ago.  They were mangled and misgorown pretty bad to where the branches have many unnatural twists and cross bends.  The plums are small and some actually taste good but most are not that pleasing, with a cling-stone pit.  If it were not for the fact that they provide good shade over my driveway where we need shade, I'd probably cut them down and start over, then keep them shaped properly until mature.

These guys are so small and clingy that it's not worth processing them to store.  Just pop in your mouth, spit out the skin, then suck the flesh off of the pit the best you can then spit out the pit.  I cant imagine there could be a pitting machine that is not cost prohibitive which would make these worthwhile.

When making jam, you can just cook the fruits whole, they break down quickly and the pits can be removed with a slotted spoon.

Sharpen a teaspoon on one edge.
Using a knife (or the spoon) cut down the groove in the plum.
Twist the halves apart, and use the teaspoon to dig out the stone.

Because of the shape of the pit, any de-pitting machine would be very difficult to make, IMHO, and if efficacious, it would cost an arm and a leg.
There are 2 kinds of plums: the prune type which separates easily in flesh and pit, and the clingstone type that can be so clingy it its embrace as to be worthless. The first one can be pitted with a sharp knife or a grapefruit spoon and dehydrated to make the regular prune. You can also make fruit leather out of it [much better than candy for your kids]. Make the rest into jams, pies etc.
The cling type can be delicious, but the work involved is often not worth it. That type is better cooked before pitting [and yes, you will have a lot of waste] or eaten fresh, juiced or preserved in alcohol. [Make slivovitz, or Rakia if you have access to a still: https://youtu.be/w0irzi1qByI ]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slivovitz
or:
https://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/the-wild-chef/how-to-make-slivovitz/
They pit theirs for that, but why? The Vodka bath will soften the fruit and remove all the flavor, so you could just use a jelly bag to get the clean juice out. [Don't throw what's left in the jelly bag: You can freeze squeeze the flesh out or pit it now and add it to cooking chicken/ other meats as a tenderizer.
Although we have sandy soil and wild cherries grow in my zone 4b with luxurious abandon, I have yet to find prunes or plums cultivars that make it here. They tend to get "the ooze" and falter in their 2nd or 3rd year. My favorite plum is the green gage, but it gets too cold here. Any suggestions??

we tend to just cook the plums up, push through a colander with a wooden spoon til we have all the fruit pips remaining, make jam or leather or sauce with the good stuff, then boil the pips for jelly, soak them for vinegar, or drown them in vodka and draw off. our friends count the plums and the. spoon out the pips after cooking.

my question is, how to make the jam less tart? do i need to remove the skins first? how?

My favorite plum is the green gage, but it gets too cold here. Any suggestions??

This old farm has a giant green gage  which over the years has produced many daughters from crosses with other plums. some of them are free stones. most are not quite as sweet but easy to dry.  
So I suggest keep bringing in seeds and planting them until you get a survivor. Land race plums!

Plum fruit cooked will always be tart even if the plums are very sweet when fresh.  Offset the tartness by cooking with nectarine or peach if you don't mind a mixed fruit jam.  I've done this and add no sugar and it tastes delicious I think.  Have used it over waffles.  

elisa rathje wrote:
my question is, how to make the jam less tart? do i need to remove the skins first? how?

Hmmm. Boil the pits for jelly? I'd like to know how to do that. Do you crack the pits before you drown them in Vodka? I'm saying that because to make cherry Kirsch, you work with the pits and Vodka, but you have to crack the pits because it is the 'nut', inside that gives it its Kirsch flavor. Since plums are a kissing cousin to cherries, I'd love to try that!

Did you mean that the jam is *tart* or it has a slightly *bitter* after taste? For tart, the only thing I know is to start with riper fruit or add sugar. The bitter after taste can be corrected with honey or brown sugar. Maybe molasses or maple syrup too but I have not tried. [The idea is really to introduce a *different* sweetener to mask the after taste you don't care for].
Some plums will have thicker and yes, bitter skins, just like Concord grapes. It improves only a little when they are super ripe. So, there is that too. I don't see myself scalding plums to peel them though!
If you know the cultivar, let us know, I'll avoid it! [who wants tart/bitter jam!

Cooking fruit whole in IP on slowcooker mode overnight is what I did but count the plums before cooking so you know how many pits to retrieve!

My pitting machine is called a paring knife! It is so easy to slice down through the Plum, twist the halves oven and do your cleanup by removing the pit, and if the plums are older some of the pith in the center. Below is the recipe that I used for a fantastic tasting Plum/Peach Jam!

The comments in the recipe are from the source, not from me.

Peach Plum Jam
By *Z* on July 21, 2009
Photo by AustinMama
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Total Time: 25 mins
• Yield: 9 half pint jars
About This Recipe
"I got this recipe from About.com. It was posted by Diana Rattray. I was looking for a way to use up my peaches and plums and there wasn't a recipe like this posted here. Don't forget to use proper canning techniques. Make sure everything is sterile!!"
Ingredients
o 2 1/2 cups finely chopped peeled and pitted peaches
o 1 1/2 cups finely chopped pitted plums
o 4 tablespoons lemon juice
o 7 1/2 cups sugar
o 2 (3 ounce) envelopes certo liquid pectin
Directions
1. In a large pot combine peaches, plums, lemon juice and sugar.
2. Cook, stiring, over med-high heat until sugar is melted.
3. Bring to a rolling boil.
4. Boil, stirring constantly, for 1 minute.
5. Add 2 pouches of Certo, stirring constantly.
6. Return to a rolling boil.
7. Boil, stirring constantly for 1 minute.
8. Remove from heat.
9. Skim off any foam with a metal spoon.
10. Fill Hot sterile jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace.
11. Wipe off jar rims with damp cloth.
12. Top with 2 piece seal and ring.
13. Hot water bath jars for 10 minutes.

For tomatoes, a quick blanch in boiling hot water makes the skins slide right off for homemade tomato sauce. I wonder if it would work the same for plums? I know it adds another step before cooking down to remove pits, but I find most of the tartness comes from the skins. Let me know if anyone tries this!

Thanks everyone for all the replies. When you google for "denoyauteur prunes" you'll probably get a whole bunch of suggestions. This one looked most interesting.
https://www.tompress.com/A-308-denoyauteur-double-2-cerises-1-prune.aspx

On the tartness of the plums, there are so many kinds of plums, especially here in France, and most of those which I tasted are not tart at all, even the semi-wild ones. But I have tasted one very bad Damson plum, very astringent and very different from the delicious Damson plums that grow in the next village. So I guess first of all just get the right plums.

My plums are ready on this tree. I don't cook them I eat raw and freeze the rest for ice cream later in the year. I just cut in half then cut around the pit to remove it

Sorry I’m late to respond, but I’ve been too busy pitting a plethora of plums to put pen to paper!

Seriously, I use a small sharp knife to cut around the plum on the fold line, equivalent to the dent on a peach, and wiggle the knife at the tip end.  I tend to do this with Netflix on some chewing gum for the mind binge watch, or just music.  Generally the riper the fruit the better, and the one half comes out whole.  The other half contains the pit and it has to be cut out with as little loss of fruit as possible.  My plims are cling stone.

Now I have 4 pint jars packed full of dried plum halves.  Like zucchini, I’ll be giving these tart snack treats away.

Other uses, next comes plums sauce.  Recipe as follows.  Then maybe some fruit leather.  Any body ever tried plum wine and or distillation to brandy?  I may even try planting some of those seeds on the less clingy fruit to see what I get.
I
Plums sauce

4 pounds plums, pitted and chopped
2 c brown sugar
1 c white sugar
¾ c chopped onions (1 medium)
@ T mustard seeds
2 T chopped chili peppers
Piece of ginger root  (1/4 by 1 inch), minced
1 T salt (non-iodized if canning)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 c cider vinegar

Combine everything but plums in a large sauce pot.  Bring to a boil: reduce heat.  Add chopped plums.  Cook until thick and syrupy, about 1 ½ hours.  Ladle hot sauce into hot jars (1/2 pint), leaving ¼ inch head space.  Adjust 2-piece caps.  Process 20 min. in a boiling water bath canner.  Yield about 4 pts or 8 half pints.   (Ball Blue Book 2002)

Han Kop wrote,
...plum season is starting in the south of France and I'm looking forward to many jams again this year. We would like to make it a bit easier by buying a pitting machine (home kitchen size, budget maybe a few hundred max...)
I really like the Westmark Plum Stoner. It is $20 here in the US. The crossed blades cut a small European type prune plum into a 4 part flat sheet of plum that is easy to fit into a stacked dehydrator. This sharp tool is a really well made product in my opinion. Depending on how many in your jam-cooking-party a few of these excellent stoners could be faster and less costly than a bulky, loud, power machine. Also called, Pfaumenentsteiner >>Steinex<<

Hello Amy

Do you have any photos of the pitted plums that you have processed using this tool?

I am curious as to how effective it is when used on small clingstone plums less than 3cm/1" diameter.

There are lots of wild "cherry" plums that grow on walking track near me that are extremely prolific but I don't often bother to pick because it's so much work to pit them.

I don't have a mouli but friends who own one process the cooked whole plums through the mouli when making plum sauce.

Many thanks

Megan writes,

I am curious as to how effective it is when used on small clingstone plums less than 3cm/1" diameter.

The firm European prune plums (cling-free) are the type for the Westmark stoner. For juicy wild plums no bigger than 1" like the ones you describe, I don't think this would work so well (it's not plum season here so I can't try it out for you). I wouldn't use the Westmark stoner on a juicy Asian-type plum such as Santa Rosa out here, or a juicy wild plum.
Just for kicks, I'd see what would happen with a small juicy plum in a cherry stoner. The cutting punch is much smaller. I am happily processing cherries today using the  Leifheit cherry stoner that accommodates 1" cherries nicely. Plum stones are oblong so this might not work unless the plum is oriented vertically in the feed tube. The plum stone cannot be larger than 1/2" so the pit can go through the 1/2" hole so that could be a bust.
Sounds like others with experience would have to weigh in here.

Hi Megan,
Here is a speedy and impressive pitting method from a fellow New Zealander: