"Dr. Richard E. Hawkins" wrote

....
It happened again. Last weekend, I ended up with lots of head
space in
the brandied peaches, even though they were to 1/8 inch.



Four inches is a lot but I've done the same. I've been canning
for 23 or 24 years, probably about 400-600 jars a year (which I
know pales in comparison to the real experts on this forum!).
But I too have often had oozing jars with peaches and tomatoes,
both raw packed.

When I was researching the causes of this (in pre-internet days),
two reasons kept coming up: too hard of a boil in processing,
and filling jars too full of raw fruit. Still to this date, I
have some problems with oozing but since I got my Weck canner, I
have very little oozing out of the jars.

The reason for this I imagine is that the "hardness" of the boil
can be controlled and the temperature is maintained without
occasional forays into super hard roiling boils. So first I
would make sure that your boil is not real hard.

Secondly you might want to heat the peaches in the syrup prior to
canning them.

In the end though, I don't worry too terribly much about it.
Rarely do I find a spoiled or even discolored jar of fruit.
Occasionally a jar refuses to seal if food has oozed out with the
syrup but I reprocess it later that same day. And I have to
admit, I'm not a stickler for exact measurements of my spacing
either.

Happy canning,

Bev C