Then store extras in fridge and pull out what you plan to eat a couple days in advance. I wish I had known that detail when our kids were at home. I only learned it on the Garden Web forum.
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I picked mine this year large in size but still hard and green with a slight blush.
After one week in cool storage (60 deg), they ripened nicely after a day or two upstairs. After the second week, they ripened all at once in cool storage and many turned to mush.
Should I refrigerate than hard and green right after picking them?
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This pear is not meant for storage. Clapps favorite should be picked when they easily pass the tilt test and a few days later ripening inside they will ripen all at once. This pear like most high quality pears is subject to internal breakdown so you have a li.ited time to eat and store these. Pears such as drippin honey Asian pear on the other hand can store for months
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This pear never leaves my mind if you know this one I wonder if you like it as well as I do? It takes a long time to produce but the wait is worth it.
Yes I showed everyone in photos above that the centers rot if not picked at the right time. They are a delicious pear.
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For early season pears, do you refrigerate as soon as you harvest, or do you let them ripen some before refrigerating?
Last year, I had a largish crop of Clapps Favorite. This year, it is Ubileen.
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I refrigerate what I donât plan to eat in a few days. They will keep for weeks.
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Last year I had a bumper crop of Clapps Favorite that was very sweet. This year, I have very little, but a friend farther south in Wisconsin had a tree full of them that he just picked and of which he shared a large bag.
The pears were picked before getting soft on the tree, but they are softening rapidly in storage as was discussed last year on this thread. My friendâs pears are softening into a buttery juicy consistency, but they are thoroughly tasteless. In earlier years, he had trouble even getting them to ripen, but his Clapps Favorite have always been lacking in flavor. I was surprised how sweet my Clapps Favorite were last year given my experience with my friendâs pears.
Is his tree too shaded? Is it lacking in nutrition? Does he need to prune it to get more light into the canopy?
He is serious about growing fruit in his yard â he is skilled at grafting and has collected varieties of pears and apples. I think between the two of us, I have a lot less practice grafting but I have put more study into pruning practices.
He is seeking my advice â he gave me a portion of his Clapps Favorite harvest with the idea that I could figure out how to ripen them in storage.
Any ideas?
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Clapps favorite are exceptional pears when grown correctly. Yes sunshine is key to growing good pears. There is another issue with to many pears on a tree can impact flavor.
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Following up to what you wrote last year about refrigerating early-season pears.
I just brought in some Ubileen and some Clappâs favorite that passed the âtip test.â It might be a tad early on the Clappâs favorite, but both types are large and have blush on them.
Do I refrigerate these early-season pears I donât want to eat right away now, rock hard just off the tree, or do I let them ripen to some degree before putting them in the fridge?
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The ones I donât plan to eat soon I refrigerate so they will keep longer. The ones I plan to eat or freeze I put on the counter.
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Thank you very much for your advice on Clappâs Favorite pears. I have two varieties of summer pears, Ubileen and Clappâs Favorite and putting them in the refrigerator soon after picking and then taking them out in batches to ripen what my family can eat is working well.
A couple of observations. We put some pears in the fridge right off the tree, but we also put some pears not right away, and it appears they were ripening in refrigerated storage. It also seems that mixing pears in those two conditions had us choking down pears to keep up with what was ripening. Yes, you told me the correct way to do this, but did I listen?
What I think could be happening is once a bag of pears starts ripening, if you put it in the refrigerator, it gives of ripening gas that accelerates the ripening of the pears put in there green. Could this be like the warning that if you store apple grafting scions in the kitchen fridge, you should caution family members not to put fresh apples in there because this will make those scions sprout?
This didnât happen to all of the pears put in this refrigerator. A goodly number we put in right away are still firm, and we are taking them out in batches to ripen.
A second observation is that my Moonglow pear tree was breaking branches, so I started taking in the larger pears much earlier than in prior years. I had these in cool storage, not in the refrigerator, because I had no idea whether these billiard balls would ripen at all. Turns out they did ripen in cool storage, they were delicious, but most notably, they didnât turn into brown mush in the inside like the Ubileen and Clappâs handled in this way. They had a considerable longer shelf life.
Finally, another question. In mid-August, I put paper bags of Clappâs in a spare refrigerator that I didnât have anything else stored, and these were put there straight-off-the-tree. Is there any chance I can store them until Thanksgiving, or is that too optimistic.
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I think ours are always gone by Thanksgiving, so I canât answer that. I have planted a Coldspot pear, which is supposed to be a long keeper, but the deer got through the fence twice and pruned it down to the spiral protector each time, so it will be a while until we get to test those out.
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Here is the update on the Clappâs Favorite pears kept in the refrigerator past Thanksgiving.
The ones we are taking out right now have yellow skin, they are juicy, and they are also mildly sweet, but not extremely sweet as one gets with this variety closer to harvest. They are a bit crisp, somewhat like an Asian pear.
I donât know if I can ripen them at this point to the buttery softness possible closer to their harvest. Left on the kitchen table, the skin starts getting brown patches. These patches are largely cosmetic, so I will try keeping some out longer. They are tasty enough in the condition straight from the fridge, so I donât know if there will be any left to test this.
In storing them this long, I sorted through the paper bags I had them in to remove the ones that didnât last in the refrigerator. I find that my stored fruit follows the type of S-shaped curve known in product quality control. Some go bad early on, that tapers off, and then towards the end of storage life, they start getting bad again.
I think I am in the middle part of the S-curve because I had them in the spare fridge in Maplewood since 6 weeks ago when I picked down the orchard there, and I didnât have to throw any out.
What I think is happening in long-term refrigerated storage of this early-season pear is that they keep, yes, and they ripen slowly in storage, but they lose the ability to ripen further when you take them out.
Whether long-term refrigerated storage is an option when you have way too many early season pears depends on how you like your pears when you eat them. But as you experience, if you have enough people around, too many early season pears doesnât happen.
Noticed that with some other varieties. Too long in the fridge and they no longer ripen on the counter. Looks like itâs the early varieties that are guilty.
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