cherry pitting

any efficient cherry pitting techniques / tools?

i have a grove of mature sweet cherry volunteers that are super tasty & disease resistant (ironically, all the grafted cherry tree plantings get close to 100% brown rot each spring).  however, as volunteers, they produce pretty small fruit.  it's a *huge* bounty, but takes a lot of time to pit the cherries.

we have an old cast iron pitter, and i've looked at some newer pitting machines, but the fastest & surest way (to miss to pits) still seems to be by hand...and that, my friends, is not too quick either.

any suggestions?

thanks!

Are you looking to simply pit them and have what looks like whole cherries afterward or if said machine broke them down to remove the pits but you were left with more like ground cherries on one side and pits on the other would that be acceptable?  Guess i need to know what your final product is.

Oh, just pulped cherries is fine!  I'll be cooking them up afterwards.  (they are way too small to keep for any fancy looking purpose, anyways).

Jonathan Ward wrote:Are you looking to simply pit them and have what looks like whole cherries afterward or if said machine broke them down to remove the pits but you were left with more like ground cherries on one side and pits on the other would that be acceptable?  Guess i need to know what your final product is.

you mention a cast iron pitter...do you mean pitter or a stoner?  Does it have the blade type wheel in the middle of the hopper with groved spirals on the wheel?  If not, i'd see about investing in one...They're a little hard to find.  My dad has one and uses it every year on his small sour cherries.  Works like a champ...he ususally gets 2-3 stones per gallon in the wrong section but if you're paying attention they're easy enough to spot.

I 3D printed a cherry pitter that works well. If the pits are smaller than normal you could resize the model to fit better: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2360035

Nice! It's amazing what you can do with 3D printers nowadays.

For several much much lower tech options...



I like the bottle and chopstick method best. The others would be quite awkward for me. But, just in case you can't find a bottle with a small enough neck...




And if you're really talented (unlike me) you can fashion a wooden palm sized handle to further reduce hand fatigue. Tada!

I have one of these and it's fantastic: https://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/oxo-olive-and-cherry-pitter/



It's not that particular brand, but the design is the same. It cost around $15 and has saved me so much time!

If you hold it over a cup and press down on the cherry, the pit is pushed out the bottom and any juice/mess is contained.

Oh, I guess I mean a stoner!  It is indeed a blade type wheel with grooved spirals...I believe we have both a '4 leg' type and a 'clamp' type.  But my little cherries are so small, I'd say the stoner only gets 75% of the pits.  It does make a terrific mess though

I haven't tried the clamp type for a while, though, will try it again based on your Dad's experience.  We have several similar devices for apple peeling, they are amazing!  Half the fun of making a pie is using the peeler.

Jonathan Ward wrote:you mention a cast iron pitter...do you mean pitter or a stoner?  Does it have the blade type wheel in the middle of the hopper with groved spirals on the wheel?  If not, i'd see about investing in one...They're a little hard to find.  My dad has one and uses it every year on his small sour cherries.  Works like a champ...he ususally gets 2-3 stones per gallon in the wrong section but if you're paying attention they're easy enough to spot.

I'd come across that too, I love it as a low tech solution!  Still not much faster than hand pitting for me, though.

I think I'm looking for a factory pitter / stoner... ha!

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:For several much much lower tech options...

I like the bottle and chopstick method best. The others would be quite awkward for me. But, just in case you can't find a bottle with a small enough neck...

And if you're really talented (unlike me) you can fashion a wooden palm sized handle to further reduce hand fatigue. Tada!

I've used this cherry pitter

a couple years in a row now and am pretty happy with it.  If you're processing any decent amount of cherries, doing it one at a time is insane as far as I'm concerned.  

This one I have definitely isn't perfect, but once you get a rhythm going and learn its limitations, it's fine.  You sometimes have to nudge the cherries from the hopper under the plunger.  Occasionally a pit will jam under the plunger, but this usually only happens if you're trying to go too fast. It misses the odd pit, but you can usually feel if the machine hasn't worked properly and pick the cherry out and back into the hopper right away. The cherries it misses look obviously different from the properly pitted ones, as well.  Do a quick visual check of the ones on top of the bowl, watch as you slowly pour the pitted cherries into whatever you're storing/using them in, and another quick surface check after.  I did 40lbs of cherries last year and only 2 or 3 pits made it through my checks.  The machine's cheap enough to try out and see if you like the style anyway.

I'm changing over to one from Leifheit. My hand held one that I 3D printed is nice and all for little jobs but I've got like 40lbs this year and it's way too much work. This one is coming in a few days: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08FXV27MF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

We grow pie cherries. We had one of those hand held ones the shoot out the pit, but we have better luck with a chopstick.  We used to try to shoot it out as well, but now we pluck it out.  Seems to work better.
John S
PDX OR

Here, in cherry country, I test drove the equivalent. Thirty seconds in and it's obvious the well the pits are to land in must go. It fills far too fast.  I'm not sure of the single pit model we have now, but it's metal and just drops the pits - a far better plan.

In the end, when you're doing twenty pound batches, being able to pit around five at a time is a must.

Ash Johnson wrote:I have one of these and it's fantastic: https://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/oxo-olive-and-cherry-pitter/

It's not that particular brand, but the design is the same. It cost around $15 and has saved me so much time!

If you hold it over a cup and press down on the cherry, the pit is pushed out the bottom and any juice/mess is contained.

RABBIT TRAIL:

For those of you doing a LOT of cherries, try freezing a quart. Even a couple years in and around zero degrees, the center will remain liquid. I'm guessing it's because of the super concentrated sugar.  One sip of it will convince you of that.  It will be, indisputably, the best cherry juice you have ever tasted.  

If cherry juice really is a cure for gout, this stuff should cure you and anyone within a quarter mile of you.

My method is a wine bottle in a bowl and a stainless-steel straw.  Push the pit through and flick the pitless cherry in the bowl.

I have this one, and love it. It clamps on, instead of sections, and other than the occasional stuck stone, it works like a champ.  https://www.ebay.com/p/1301457488

For uses where cherries don't need to be whole, simmer them till soft and dump into a colander with holes slightly smaller than the pits. Use wooden spoon to mash fruit through. You will have chunky cherry pulp for sauces/jams/salsa.

Hi Carla,
I assume that the cherry pitter you showed is set for Montmorency pie cherries? Does it reset the cherries well after you pit one? We might want to get one like that.
John S
PDX OR

I've used it for Bing, mostly. I like to dehydrate them, to add to trail mix, for fruitcakes, ice creams, etc. When a stone gets stuck, I just knock it out, and keep going. It's very easy.

Over on growingfruit.org, there is a member who uses paper clips to pop out cherry seeds. If you develop the technique, it seems like a low tech solution.

I mostly freeze my extra cherries. I mostly grow Montmorency and some Balaton and Surefire, because, to me, pie cherries have so much flavor.  I will admit that Bing is about the best sweet cherry.  We depit some of them so my wife will make pie and cherry crisp, etc.  It's work but it tastes so dang good.  I eat most of them just as individually frozen cherries on a cookie sheet, mostly in the winter and spring when fruit is harder to come by.
John S
PDX OR

We get most of our pie/ cobbler, etc cherries from a local Mennonite store, and they come pitted and frozen. They save me a lot of work and mess. I hope to someday have a few cherry trees, so I can have both, in my own space, for free.