Cherries are one of the first stone fruits of summer! Delicious as they are, these little rubies take lots of time to prepare for preserving! Unless you freeze them whole or put them up via our favorite canning recipe, pitting is a tedious task! Today, I’d like to share our favorite technique with you. Here’s a cheap and easy way to pit cherries!
Necessary Equipment
A homemade pitter is easy to make. You’ll need an old wine bottle and a chop stick. Or the back end of a (clean) pen will do!
That’s it! Let me show you how it works!
How to Pit Cherries Over a Wine Bottle
Set a cherry (stem side up) on the mouth of a wine bottle. Hold it in place with one hand while using the other to punch the back of your pen/chopstick through the cherry.
The pit will fall through into the bottle and you’ll be left with a whole, pitted cherry!
That’s it! Simple, right? The only other thing you need to be aware of is how full your bottle gets, particularly if you’re doing lots of cherries!
Emptying the Bottle
A bottle filled to the neck with cherry pits is difficult to empty out. Instead of fighting the system, dump the contents when they reach the 3/4 full mark. You can do this by turning the bottle upside down and vigorously shaking it over a compost bucket. Everything should slide right out.
And then? Carry on!
This is our favorite method, a cheap and easy way to pit cherries!
Hi, my name is Autumn and I'm all about whole food cooking, gardening, preserving and nourishing the home in a traditional manner. 
My husband drilled a few different sized holes in a 1 x 6 that we set over a bowl. This way we could pit small pie cherries or larger Bing-style cherries. We matched the cherry to the hole that best fit the pit size. I found an old pen with a flat end that worked best.
Now that sounds like a good idea!