Canning Club!

1246

Replies

  • callie365
    callie365 Posts: 689
    Hello :smile:

    Sounds like fun and loads of information, I'd love to join your thread!

    I planted my 1st garden this year and want to learn how to can to be ready for next summer.
  • bhender254
    bhender254 Posts: 4 Member
    Hi, just wanted to speak up here as I have been canning for about 20 years. Be very careful with hot water bath canning/boiling water canning. 15 minutes is not long enough to properly perserve anything and could make you very very sick as botchalism will grow in sealed jars that haven't been processed properly. The scary thing about botchalism is that it has no smell or taste, you don't know it's there until you are sick.

    Pressure canning is the safest way to preserve vegetables I would hate to hear of anyone getting sick or worse from trying to can their own foods. If you aren't sure google "canning" and whatever food you want to can and you can find the correct way to process.

    I'm not trying to discourage anyone, just want everyone to be safe.
  • kayemme
    kayemme Posts: 1,782 Member
    whew! this is working again!

    I have the Ball Blue Book, and it does suggest using lemon juice to up the acidity. Most of my toms are at their peak right now, as I only picked the oldest ones a couple days ago and many last night.

    when packed in water, it says to process for 40m pints; 45m quarts, in the water bath canner. so that's significantly longer than 15m that someone was concerned about.
  • TropicalKitty
    TropicalKitty Posts: 2,298 Member
    Hi, just wanted to speak up here as I have been canning for about 20 years. Be very careful with hot water bath canning/boiling water canning. 15 minutes is not long enough to properly perserve anything and could make you very very sick as botchalism will grow in sealed jars that haven't been processed properly. The scary thing about botchalism is that it has no smell or taste, you don't know it's there until you are sick.

    Pressure canning is the safest way to preserve vegetables I would hate to hear of anyone getting sick or worse from trying to can their own foods. If you aren't sure google "canning" and whatever food you want to can and you can find the correct way to process.

    I'm not trying to discourage anyone, just want everyone to be safe.

    Thank you for your concern! Food safety is the biggest deal in home canning. We do our best to follow the USDA guidelines for processing high and low acid foods the proper way.

    From what I've read, high acid foods can be safely processed in a water bath as the acid is inhospitable to botchulism and the times have generally been around 20-25minutes for processing (for things like jams, longer for other things).

    Those veggies etc are definitely the ones you have to watch out for and I totally agree with you, when in doubt, pressure can! But just because you pressure can doesn't mean you did it correctly either. You must ensure you get to the proper PSI for your elevation to attain the proper temperature for killing the bacteria.

    In googling, you need to make sure the source is a good source though too. Stick to known entities, government (FDA, USDA, local extension office) and academic institutions. Pickyourown.org appears to be good as well since they site the USDA regs. Ball is another good resource, along with the guide that comes with the canning supplies.

    So, please everyone keep these things in mind. :) When in doubt, ask, that's why we're here! Make sure we are doing things the right way. We don't want anyone getting sick.
  • kayemme
    kayemme Posts: 1,782 Member
    just sent bf to get a new sponge because the old one freaks me out too much to use on the canning equipment....
  • TropicalKitty
    TropicalKitty Posts: 2,298 Member
    just sent bf to get a new sponge because the old one freaks me out too much to use on the canning equipment....

    Not that this is canning related, but one of those hints from Heloise type things...I had thought I read you could nuke em to clean em...but I just like to run the jars thru the dishwasher. And I, too, would prefer a clean sponge to dirty. They're the nastiest thing.

    You just gave me an idea! dedicated canning sponge?
  • mamaturner
    mamaturner Posts: 2,447 Member
    whew! this is working again!

    I have the Ball Blue Book, and it does suggest using lemon juice to up the acidity. Most of my toms are at their peak right now, as I only picked the oldest ones a couple days ago and many last night.

    when packed in water, it says to process for 40m pints; 45m quarts, in the water bath canner. so that's significantly longer than 15m that someone was concerned about.

    good to know!!! I don't have the ability to get a canner yet so I do it in a water bath
  • TropicalKitty
    TropicalKitty Posts: 2,298 Member
    whew! this is working again!

    I have the Ball Blue Book, and it does suggest using lemon juice to up the acidity. Most of my toms are at their peak right now, as I only picked the oldest ones a couple days ago and many last night.

    when packed in water, it says to process for 40m pints; 45m quarts, in the water bath canner. so that's significantly longer than 15m that someone was concerned about.

    good to know!!! I don't have the ability to get a canner yet so I do it in a water bath

    I think hot pack rather than raw pack helps too...my two pennies.
  • mamaturner
    mamaturner Posts: 2,447 Member
    whew! this is working again!

    I have the Ball Blue Book, and it does suggest using lemon juice to up the acidity. Most of my toms are at their peak right now, as I only picked the oldest ones a couple days ago and many last night.

    when packed in water, it says to process for 40m pints; 45m quarts, in the water bath canner. so that's significantly longer than 15m that someone was concerned about.

    good to know!!! I don't have the ability to get a canner yet so I do it in a water bath

    I think hot pack rather than raw pack helps too...my two pennies.

    I'm assuming hot pack is when your "ingredients" are hot? If so, that's how I do it, lol... still have a lot of terms to learn!
  • mamaturner
    mamaturner Posts: 2,447 Member
    awesome thank you!! I'm in love with 'em so far, we're big on using local!
  • mamaturner
    mamaturner Posts: 2,447 Member
    Just canned up 2 jars of salsa, OLE! Should get more peppers from my hubs aunt tomorrow when we stop by, and we have TONS more tomatoes comin, so eithe rmore salsa or tomato sauce.
  • TropicalKitty
    TropicalKitty Posts: 2,298 Member
    nice! I hope the tomatoes last the heat here. This weekend is supposed to be my tomato product weekend. *crosses fingers*
  • tattoodfreek
    tattoodfreek Posts: 520 Member
    We did more sghetti sauce here, salsa, and tomorrow we're just doing tomatoes.
  • TropicalKitty
    TropicalKitty Posts: 2,298 Member
    Hey Hey!

    This weekend is tomatoes and peaches. I plan on making tomato sauce, salsa and canned tomatoes for chili (with peppers in it). Woot! And then the peaches in light syrup. I just haven't figured out how many pounds of tomatoes I need...30? Or the jars. Oh my. hahaha At least Kroger has jars on sale until the 28th. Guess I need to get my shopping list together for the farmer's market.

    I just placed an order for 30lbs Bartlett pears and 35lbs Stanley plums. I'll pick them up next weekend to can. So...

    MISS MAMA! I need some good recipes! haha I want to try some of your plum jam stuff or any other good ideas you have that I can do with them.

    Here's another thing...recipes always say for quart and pint jars. I was thinking about doing some stuff like the salsa and jams in little jars...how long do you need to process those? Just go ahead and do them like pints?
  • tattoodfreek
    tattoodfreek Posts: 520 Member
    We did our tomatoes in pint jars (figuring a pint = 1 can of tomatoes for recipes.) A half bushel (roughly 25 pounds) yielded 19 pints (so 8-9 quarts.) If you plan to do all three of those things, 30 pounds of tomatoes is not going to go very far. What kind of tomatoes are you getting? If you're doing sauce, romas would be best, as they yield a thicker pulp and need to be cooked down less. If I do 25 pounds of romas, I get 9 quarts of sauce. If I do 25 pounds of a juice tomato, I only get about 4 quarts. Then again, we're a family of 7, so it's hardly worth it for me to go to the trouble of canning just one or two jars of anything. It would be gone immediately, LOL.

    We're doing pears next (probably next week.) I've never canned plums!

    I would process your smaller jars like pints, unless they are SMALL small.
  • LauraAkaTigger
    LauraAkaTigger Posts: 145 Member
    My post is totally unrelated... But check out my username.. Surname!! Lol!! Was wondering what the canning club was!!!
  • mamaturner
    mamaturner Posts: 2,447 Member
    Haha, Hi canningl that's funny!

    Sounds like everyone's been busy! Deffinitly tomato time.. we have quite a few here!! Today is the zoo but after I'm getting more jars, and a canning kettle! 25 bucks for the typical (cottage looking style) comes with all the tools! Gonna get some jam jars (so I'm not making pints of jam lol) and some big quarts and such.

    Gonna make some tomato sauce tomorrow and pineapple plum jam!

    Happy Canning!
  • TropicalKitty
    TropicalKitty Posts: 2,298 Member
    Tomatoes suck. I hate them! They stink. They stained my hands. BOO!

    But my sauce is awesome.

    I ended up just getting like 14lbs romas and a couple pounds of the other type the stand had to add a little other flavor for a total of about 17lbs. THANK GOSH! It took me like 2-3hours to get that all ready to make the sauce. haha

    I made a ragu type (17lbs tomatoes, 1 large onion, 7-8carrots, 6celery stalks, 11 garlic cloves, fresh basil, fresh parsley, oregano, red pepper flakes, sea salt, splash cabernet, fresh cracked black pepper). Yums! I just hope that canning it didn't kill the amazingness that it was when I tasted it haha I cooked it down good because I like it thick and ended up getting 4 pints and 2 quarts. Guess in the future I'll have to do this multiple times in the summer to be set.

    Still have to take care of the peaches I got...and then this coming weekend is pears and plum weekend. Oy! My brother will be here, so I'll put the kid to work.

    How long are tomatoes in season for?
  • mamaturner
    mamaturner Posts: 2,447 Member
    Jessy- I feel your tomato pain! lol. I only had 6 pounds of romas, just from our own plants. It made 2 1/2 pints, luckily we use smaller amounts of these things. Mine was tomato, onion, celery, basil, thyme, garlic.. I used what I had! lol

    Also made 2 types of mam, and more today. Next weekend more pickles, salsa and more tomato sauce.

    As for tomatoes in season, not sure!
  • TropicalKitty
    TropicalKitty Posts: 2,298 Member
    Peaches, DONE!

    Got 7 pints. haha My kitchen smelled heavenly. I did some "spirited." Ok, the bulk were. Triple Sec x2, Spiced rum x2, and pomegranate vodka x1. The last 2 were plain peaches. I hope they taste good!
  • TropicalKitty
    TropicalKitty Posts: 2,298 Member
    Uh oh! Canning isn't so exciting anymore. haha

    I got my plum and pears Friday. The plums weren't what I thought they were. They were better! I had expected them to be sweet plums, but nope! They were the small tart plums that I grew up on as a kid (seems to be a German/Eastern European thing, or at least it's always the older eastern Euro ladies fighting over them at the store...and me.). Anyway, I made plum preserves. My grandparents are going to be happy. They grew up eating it back in Germany. And I'll probably make more since 10 8oz jars was only 10cups and I have 30lbs of plums. I'll make some cake too, but that's not canning related.

    The pears...I'll can too. Waiting for them to ripen a lil more. I'll make some spirited. Anyone have any other good pear ideas? Pearsauce? - I have 39lbs of pears!
  • mamaturner
    mamaturner Posts: 2,447 Member
    I bought plums too! funny tho, mine are sweet italian.. ones that I grew up with as a kid (I'm not italian that I know of.. however dad's adopted :tongue: but we had a tree in the backyard) I'll be making plum raspberry jam with 'em.. if the hubs can resist eating them! More pickles (dill and bread and butter) and also salsa.

    As for pears, have you thought of pear butter? YUM! also yes, pearsauce would be delicious! However my main vote may have to go for the spirited! :drinker:
  • TropicalKitty
    TropicalKitty Posts: 2,298 Member
    How do you make pear butter?
  • mamaturner
    mamaturner Posts: 2,447 Member
    How do you make pear butter?

    Good question! lol.. it may be on the links you posted.. otherwise google. I've heard all the butter's talked about!
  • TropicalKitty
    TropicalKitty Posts: 2,298 Member
    I was out of town so sorry I slacked on keeping this going!

    I found some butter recipes in the Ball book I got. haha I'm still going through all the 400 recipes in there!

    Canned the 39lbs of pears - did them basically just in syrup (some sugar and some with honey) and some with booze. Finished off the plums with more jam...and one batch of jam I took too far and made something like a really soft sugar candy. hahaha oops!

    Right now the bulk foods thing I get this stuff from is doing apples. We're planning apple sauce next...I'll have a bushel of apples to process in a couple weeks. Yea! I need to make some more pasta sauce too...hopefully the tomatoes are still around.
  • mamaturner
    mamaturner Posts: 2,447 Member
    Glad to see someone else! lol... I just finished some dilly beans, tomorrow I'm doing applesauce and apple butter.

    TropicalKitty, that link you posted has been my "canning bible" lol!!
  • kayemme
    kayemme Posts: 1,782 Member
    so i totally made my first jam: tomato jam.
    shut it. delicious.
    and i think i did everything right. :)
  • kayemme
    kayemme Posts: 1,782 Member
    i have a serious abundance of peaches & plums, so i was wondering, can i combine them to make peach/plum jam?

    the plums are delicious, but frankly, i'm tired of them. we've been getting them for almost a moth from the csa and i don't want to waste them, but i don't want to eat them either because now we have delicious apples from delicious csa (no need to preserve those, i just eat them as they come).

    k
  • TropicalKitty
    TropicalKitty Posts: 2,298 Member
    i just canned my peaches in syurp and booze - waterbath only is needed.

    why not try peach/plum jam? do a small batch, dip a spoon in and if it sucks, then give it to some one you don't like. hahaha and if it rocks, make more.

    look around for some recipes for the plums and peaches...what about jelly and not jam? i've found a bunch of other recipes in my ball canning book that use other things with the fruits too that i would have never thought of.

    and yes...the tomato jam sounds horrid...i saw it in the ball book and was puzzled. i hate tomatoes, unless they're in pizza or pasta sauce...or ketchup or bbq sauce. evil fruits they are! ;) but i'm glad you liked what you made. hehe

    i just ordered 2 bushels of apples. woot!

    lastly...anyone know anything about honey? i can't find anything really about preserving it (yes, i know it doesn't go bad unless it gets icky stuff in it). so do you just clean a jar and pour it in? i can get a gallon of raw local honey for like $33.50 so i'm tempted to get it and just jar it myself.
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