You may use the cold pack for pears. Just follow the recipe for peaches. I always use a light syrup. Have been doing this for well over 50 years.

Go ahead, use the light syrup and cold-pack them. You still have to peel them which usually means blanching them, but not necessarily. One problem you might have is putting room-temperature jars into boiling water will tend to crack the jar, which is not cool to say the least. To combat this pour the boiling hot syrup over the peaches in the jars as late as possible before immersing in the BWB. That way the jars will be warmer when they hit the boiling water. Lots of people will also heat the jars before packing, although I don't. But I do very slowly ease the rack of jars into the water to minimize thermal shock.

I also cold pack peaches and use a light syrup. They float. I don't care.

I very seldom get the breakage of jars from thermal shock, but as soon as I say that, one breaks!

Annie

How different is the fruit in texture after you cold pack? Is it that much different than if you hot pack? Thanks!

Peaches, without ascorbic acid will turn brown.. Here, some of mine are now 2 years old, and still quite peach color. One jar missed the ascorbic and was tossed as it was really looking bad.