How to get a “meatless” cherry pit in a matter of seconds: 5 ways

For any preparations for the winter, it is recommended to remove the seeds before storing them. A few simple ways will make this boring task easier.

How to get a bone

If you don’t want to get your hands dirty with juice and spend several hours sorting through a large amount of harvest, you should think about how to make your work easier. Special machines - mechanical stone squeezers - speed up the work, but a considerable part of the pulp is pushed out along with the stone. The device is a mini-press. On one side there is a small base with a hole in the center; a cherry is placed on it. On top there is a spring that lowers a lever with a pointed tip.

It is especially difficult to use them to remove seeds from frozen berries. After all, housewives often send surplus from the garden straight to the freezer, without subjecting the cherries to heat treatment. If you need to add it to the filling for baked goods or prepare a drink, the seeds should be removed first. A stone squeezer will most likely crush the berries, but will not fulfill its task. The handles of some garlic presses are also equipped with a cell for berries and a protrusion for removing seeds.

The disadvantages of mechanical devices lead to the fact that doing work manually is faster and more convenient.

1. Each berry must be positioned exactly in the center, otherwise the pusher will only pierce the pulp.
2. The tools will pull out most of the seeds with the “meat”; a lot of juice will flow out. It's wasteful and inconvenient.
3. A special device costs money, but at home you can make a device no worse.

It should be remembered that any device, if used improperly, will deform the berry. A competent choice of available tools will protect you from loss of juice or an unaesthetic appearance of the workpiece. It’s worth trying 5 simple tips on how to build a device with your own hands that is better than a store-bought one. Surely any housewife will find her own way to solve the problem. Now cleaning cherries in any quantity will not make you sad.

1. Bottle and stick

Large berries should be placed in a container with a narrow neck (drink bottle, empty medication bottle). The side with the notch from the stalk should be facing up. Using a wooden barbecue skewer, pierce the cherry with the sharp end.

The stone will come out entirely, and the flesh will not be affected. Ready berries should be placed in a separate container. When finished, the seeds can be easily discarded by shaking them out of the bottle. This method is the fastest and easiest, with the least amount of dirt on your hands.

2. Cocktail straw

Any rod will serve as the optimal device for cherries with strong pulp. If the berries are small, it is difficult to work with them with a special tool. In this case, a cocktail straw will help. It should be pressed against the recess on the side where the stalk is attached and press lightly.

After this, the berry is pulled along the tube. If the bones are large, they are pushed out. In small cherries such as game or felt varieties, the core will remain inside the straw. Using this principle, you can use any other narrow container with a hole in the center.

3. Safety pin

Handicraft tools often help housewives not only for their intended purpose. The pit from the berries is easily removed using a regular safety pin and without unnecessary damage to the pulp. It is worth choosing a small-sized product with a neat “ear”.

You should insert a pin tip into the cherry from the side where the stalk is attached. Then the bone is hooked with a ring and pulled out. It can be easily removed through the resulting hole; just press lightly on the sides of the berry with your fingers.

4. Tweezers

Tweezers or eyebrow pliers have been a convenient device for removing kernels from berries since the time of our grandmothers. At first you will have to spend time until you have enough dexterity. But if you get the hang of it, you can remove the pit from a cherry faster than using a pitter.

The sharp tips of the tool easily pierce the skin. You should feel and firmly grasp the bone, pulling it out. The main advantage of this method is that the pulp is not damaged at all, and the berry itself is not deformed.

5. Hairpin or paper clip

If you don’t have tweezers or other equipment at hand, you can get by with a regular hairpin or paper clip to quickly remove the pit from the berries.

With their help, they are extracted, wielding the tool like a small spoon. The rounded tip of a pin (or the bent edge of a paperclip) is inserted where the petiole is attached. Using a rotational movement, the bone is removed.

The advantages of this method include its accuracy. A small hole does not deform the berry and creates almost no splashes of juice. It doesn't cost a penny and is available to every woman. The only drawback is the labor intensity. Peeling a couple of cups of cherries with a hairpin or paperclip should be easy.But if you need to recycle a couple of buckets, you should look for a more productive tool.

Questions and answers

Why can't you store cherries with pits?

You can store it, but not more than 6 months. The seeds contain a substance that, when combined with gastric juice, forms a dangerous toxin - hydrocyanic acid. If you eat fresh, seedless berries, there will be no harm. But during long-term storage, the poison gradually penetrates through the shell directly into the pulp. Therefore, you should process cherries for harvesting and freezing, after removing the pits.

Is it possible to remove pits from frozen cherries?

To do this, you will need to defrost the berries at room temperature for 1.5-2 hours. When choosing a tool, it is worth considering that the skin of such cherries bursts easily, and the pulp quickly disappears into the juice. You need to remove the seeds very carefully.

What is the easiest way to remove pits from cherries?

To process a large harvest, you should opt for special mechanical press devices or choose a wooden skewer that pushes the seeds into the bottle. But for delicate berries and for small amounts of work, it is better to use improvised means (pins, hairpins, tweezers and others). They will allow you to preserve the juicy pulp without loss and will not deform the cherries.

Folk methods for extracting pits from cherries are not inferior in effectiveness to a special pit squeezer and a garlic press tool. Often, improvised means more carefully pierce the skin of the berries and do not tear out the flesh “with meat”. They are suitable for loose varieties of cherries that are easily deformed and produce juice.