No one will come to arrest you if you choose to leave them on so ultimately it is your choice. ;-)

The guideline is there for two reason: 1) peeling reduces the bacterial count in the sealed jar significantly as the skins are the primary source of any bacterial/fungal contamination and they are not destroyed by BWB processing.

2) the peels, if left on, usually separate during processing anyway and turn into small tough, chewy, bitter bits left floating in the syrup so both flavor and appearance are affected.

As a suggested alternative to the dip and peel removal process they now make easy to use peelers for thin skin fruits that work exceptionally well for peaches.

Dave

Example of fruit peeler

Thank you, Dave. You are a treasure!

Nila42, on the recommendation of people on this forum, I bought two of those Zyliss Tomato and Fruit peelers. They are great. I love not needing a supply of ice and not heating up the house with a big pot of boiling water in order to skin peaches. With the two of us working, the peeling goes fairly quickly, though I still have not figured out how to not have peach juice running down my arms.

Roasting before canning works to remove tomato skins, and I'm going to try it with peaches this year, too.

We did it with tomatoes last year and it was sooooo delicious, so easy, and I think you get more in the jars. With the tomatoes, we cut them in half, laid them cut-side up on trays in the oven, and roasted them for a good 45 min or hour at fairly low temperature. Then the skins just pinch right off, no effort at all. We packed them into jars, squished them down with spoons to make sure the jar really fills up with juice, which it did, and then boiling-water-bath treated them for longer than the usual recommendation. We did it with paste-type tomatoes as well as regular juicy tomatoes, and both worked great. They were very very delicious!

We're going to try the same with peaches, but will probably add a little lemon juice and sugar to make sure it stays acid enough.

If the item gets a little too dry and doesn't cover itself with juice in the jars, I would add some kind of (acidic) juice to make sure it gets covered, because it is the convection of the liquid in a canning jar that helps get the required heat to the center of the jar.