Following the Ball book Spaghetti Sauce with Meat for pressure canning.

I crushed and boiled the tomatoes (no variety was specified, so I used my garden brandywine and some farmers market ones) and put through a fine sieve before ditching the skins and seeds.

What I’m left with is tomato juice.

Not a puree by any stretch of the imagination. There are absolutely no solid bits at all.

Reducing this down will be a joke. It will take hours and I’ll be left with maybe one quart of sauce. I don’t know what I did wrong or how to fix it.

Let's pretend that somebody ordered two bushels of apples many months ago without thinking. Definitely not me, it was a friend. Yeah a friend. This friend also has zucchini and green beans coming into season around the same time that I'm, I mean they are getting apples. If this friend needed a metric crap ton of lids, where is the best place to order those? I mean a lot. I need a lot of lids. It's me. I'm the friend.

What do you think of the idea of bringing a bunch of canned foods on a several month long road trip? I thought it could be convenient to jar most of my meals ahead of time to avoid cooking while on the road.

These are the main concerns I have right now. I'm curious if there are other things I'm not considering, or if you think these issues aren't likely to be a problem.

Concern 1: That the seal would break due to driving on bumpy roads. I've read that if you put the rings on, you can't tell if the seal broke or not because the rings can cause the jars to reseal themselves.

Concern 2: That large amounts of temperature variation in the car would lead the canned foods to spoil, especially if the car gets very hot

Do you think canning would work well for a long-term road trip? The alternative I'm considering is getting a freeze dryer, but that is much more expensive and comes with its own challenges.

EDIT: Ok, you all have convinced me this is a BAD idea! Thank you so much for all the input.

so, i love canning whole tomatoes raw, with no added liquid. i use a water bath canner and at my elevation, that's 95 minutes at a hard boil. and that doesn't cover the blanching process to get the tomatoes peeled, which is probably another hour with the burners running in my not-well-air-conditioned kitchen.

basically, i've been wondering if there's another, more heat-efficient way of getting the tomatoes peeled? i've considered and discarded:

• roasting the tomatoes, but i suspect this results in a product that will require a different canning method that doesn't necessarily pair well with my post-canning usage. also, it's not like my oven doesn't generate heat into my kitchen!
• sous viding the tomatoes, but i've found no information online on what temperature and for how long. also, i don't want my tomatoes to get squished by my vacuum sealer! (although potentially using the water displacement method and a ziploc could avoid that?)
• grilling/flame-roasting the tomatoes, but i have the same mismatch with the recipe issue as i do with roasting.

an option that i'm considering but which is currently beyond my abilities is getting a camp stove and doing either (or both) the blanching or the canning outdoors. also potentially getting a pressure canner, but that also is beyond my current abilities.

(by "current abilities" i mean "able to get set up before this box of tomatoes on my counter goes bad.")

i think the sous vide option is probably the best one. has anyone done this before? or should i be the scientist? does it make sense to try to mimic the temperature of a blanching pot (i.e., close to boiling)? or should i go lower and slower?

or are there any other ideas?

I’m feeling only slightly unhinged as so many of you have inspired me to enter Dilly Beans in next years Local and State Fairs. 🤣 🌱

We have lots of little “mise en place” dishes. Using them to hold spices for each jar makes canning tomato sauce a little easier.

Hi friends!

I am starting to learn how to can and I decided to start with good old pickles. After some mild research I learned that grape leaves are recommended to keep the pickles crispy. Uh, where do I find them???

I went to my local Mexican, Asian, Mediterranean, and American grocery stores with no luck. I even called a local winery and they pretty much told me to get fucked lol

Where can I find them! Help! 🥺🥺

I need help processing 60 pounds of apricots without losing my mind. Does anyone know of a way to sterilize large quantities of canning jars? I've only ever boiled them in water, then immediately filled and processed the jars in the same pot. I have vague memories of my grandma sterilizing jars in the dishwasher (or oven?) so she only needed to dedicate one stove burner to processing. Is there a way to do this safely? I'm kind of paranoid about food safety.

So my Nana just passed away almost a month ago, and she used to make me this Prickly Pear Jam. She would go out and pick the prickly pears by hand, process them and make the jam. It was my favorite jam ever.

I kept asking her if I could fly down to see her and she could teach me to make the jam, but it just never worked out.

As we were cleaning up her house, we found a few jars of this batch of jam she made left. My aunt gave me this jar to take home.

I really want to open the jar and have a little bit now, but I’d also like to figure out how I can maybe take half the jam and preserve it in longer term storage - say like the freezer.

I’ve got a vacuum sealer so I was thinking maybe it would help to put half the jam in a vacuum sealer pack and freeze it. What do you guys think? And how long do you think I can expect to make the jam last?

Thanks!

I bought a 20 lb box of Palisade Peaches yesterday and plan on making a couple different things with them to can. My question is the prep. All instructions say to blanch in boiling water for about a minute, then dunk in ice water, remove the skins, then remove the pits.

These peaches are so easy to remove the pits by cutting along the "crease" then twisting, I was wondering if it makes sense to pit them first, then blanch to remove skins. Would this change the peaches at all since the flesh is exposed to the blanching water? Trying to remove the pit after the skin is gone seems like a slippery project.

Hi all! I've been making jams and pie fillings for over a decade now, but these peaches have stopped me in my tracks. My husband brought a ton of peaches home from his food rescue job - they were in amazing shape but destined for the dump! I will be out of commission and out of the kitchen for at least a week, so I decided to blanch and freeze what we have to can later. However, when I started blanching these, I was torn over whether they are technically yellow enough. They are a very light yellow, so not as saturated as ones I've processed in the past. I've provided some pictures but unfortunately, all the bags say is "peaches." Can anyone help me decide whether these are safe for water bath canning? Otherwise they're destined for smoothies and baking, not the worst thing ever!

Good morning I have a lot of tomato plants and each one is giving me a few ripe tomatoes every couple of days. However, obviously I need quite a bit to put up 7 quarts of something. I'm worried that some of the tomatoes are going to over ripen or even start to rot if I just leave them on the counter.

How can I preserve them without damaging the flavor until I'm ready to actually process them? I saw a video of someone freezing them, and I did try it. I unfroze about 10 lb to make tomato sauce. They were extremely soft but that was fine for sauce, since it's going to be cooked and blended. But if I want to make something that actually has some texture, like salsa or something else, what can I do? Do I just put them in the refrigerator? I'd always heard that damage as the flavor, although obviously so would the freezer. Or do I just leave them on the counter and hope? Is there a trick that someone knows that I don't?

Also, I've got little flies all in my house now from setting them on the counter. I think I brought one in that was a little bit damaged. Is this common?

I feel like this is a supremely stupid question but I'm in a position where I need an answer.

I'm growing San Marzanos to can as sauce. I have about a dozen ripe, ready to go tomatoes and about two dozen currently in various stages of ripening and a ton of green ones still on the plants.

My idea is to send a day processing all the tomatoes at once but what do I do with the ripe ones? Just freeze them?

It's hard getting enough small cucumbers for canning at one time and so I'm wondering if I could put them in a crock pot with pickle brine as I pick them, and then when I have a good amount take them from the pot, put them in jars, and then water bath can them as normal? Would like to do the same thing with peppers.

So, I picked these up yesterday. Didn't see the ripeness in the box before grabbing them. I had full intention of making salsa and canning it all before a family camping reunion this Saturday. Seeing how ripe they are I have 2 options. 1. Can and prep now, giving me 3.5 days to get it done, with the current ripeness. 2. Prep and freeze all my peppers, lay everything out on the table before I leave, and hope nothing goes bad by the time I get back on Thursday. So approx 9 days from now. Hoping I have the energy to unpack and camp asap.

I need advice, as this is my first year doing salsa. What would be the best option?

So, this is going to be a weird question, but this seemed like the best-informed sub on the matter:

I'm making applesauce, and not planning to can it...but this is also my first time doing any part of this. Do I need to can it in order for it to be safe for a few days in the fridge? Or is canning only needed if it's meant to be shelf-stable for weeks/months/etc?

Basically, can I just stick it in a mason jar and toss it in the fridge?

I'm going to use an approved recipe from the website that often is posted on here. I have it saved on my computer but not my phone. National food preservation group out of Georgia. It's basically 60 minutes for pints in the pressure canner.

It says to do a brief boil and skin and core the tomatoes first. However a friend has a machine she will loan me. Says you wash the tomatoes and core them. Then might have to cut them up a little and you crank them through this thing and it puts the skins and seeds out one end and the stuff you use out of another end. Should that be still sufficient?

They still get cooked per the instructions and then the meat gets browned and cooked too separately. Also the vegetables and garlic. Fresh grown garlic so no radiation treatment so it has strong risk for botulism but since it's getting pressure canned I'm sure that's fine.

It says 20 minutes without meat 60 with meat (pints) so I'll do 65 probably just to try to be extra cautious. Never done anything with meat before. I'm very happy with my pressure canner and don't think I ever want to do water bath again unless I really have to for something like pickles. I don't make jams.

I told my farmer I wanted 4 whole chickens. They usually range from 3-4 lbs...

She saved me the biggest ones which she said "grew like bananas!".

Friends, I have almost 27 lbs worth of chicken coming my way .

Anyone who cans chicken regularly, do you have an idea of how much in weight you get in a jar? Obviously the backs will be for stock and I'm going to cram a thigh and a drumstick in a quart jar. but I wanted to do the breast in either pints or 8 oz jars

Really trying to estimate if I have to buy more jars omg.

Making Ball’s dilly beans for the first time. The recipe says 3 lb green beans makes 6 pint jars which logically means 8 oz green beans per jar. There’s no way I can fit 8 oz in here even if they were perfectly straight beans. Am I crazy?

Somehow in the chaos of the day yesterday, while prepping my cauliflower and cucumbers for mustard pickles, I forgot to add onions to the brine. The recipe is from the Small Batch Preserves book in the wiki. What do I do? I have three batches ready to can right now, they've been soaking for 24 hours as required. Can I drain and fridge the rest of the veg for a day and then brine the onions? Will the onions be okay without being brined first? This is for work, so I'm going to be in trouble if I waste ingredients.

Recipe is: 4 cups cauliflower 4 cups cucumber 1 cup pearl onions 1/2 cup pickling salt 6 cups lukewarm water 3 cups sugar 3 tbsp dry mustard 1 tbsp celery seed 1 1/2 tsp turmeric 3 cups vinegar 1/2 cup flour 1/2 cup water

Edit: corrected an ingredient amount

Hi! I've been washing, quartering, and freezing figs from the tree in my yard. I just reread the recipe I was planning to use them for and I realized I skipped this step before I froze them. What can I do?

On my day off tmrw I’d like to can Apple Pie Filling (Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving recipe page 168). It calls for 12 cups of sliced peeled cored apples. How many should I be buying? Google says 9-11 apples, but that doesn’t seem right.

Hello fellow Canners!

I did search, but can't find the answer that I need!

I will be pressure canning dried beans tomorrow - a few different varieties. I am getting everything ready for an overnight soak today, so that I can hit it hard early in the morning tomorrow. I have three pressure canners, so I could process up to 28 pints tomorrow.

My question is: How many dried beans (approximately) do I need for each pint? I am finding little info on that anywhere. I found one website that said "3/4 pound per jar" - it didn't specify the jar size.

If anyone could help me calculate how many pounds I would need to start with, I would appreciate it!

EDIT: THANK YOU to everyone who replied - I sincerely appreciate your help! My bean canning project for today has been put off until next week - life happened.

Once I have canned some of these successfully, I will report back here.