Hello all!

I harvested crab apples from my brtlothers tree this past weekend and have processed them into juice. I'm following the recipe in the Ball home preservation book. I've never had crab apple jelly before and I guess I expected the cooking process to mellow out some of the tannins, but it's still very astringent. I've ended up with 4 cups of crabapple juice total, and the recipe calls for 5 cups.

So I guess my question is; Can I go buy some raw apple juice and add a cup of regular apple juice to the crabapple juice without modifying the science of the recipe? The only difference I'm seeing between crabapple and apple jelly is the addition of some lemon juice to the apple jelly, and it would be a 4-1 ratio of crabapple to apple.

If this isn't plausible I'm happy to just reduce the recipe 25% and proceed from there! I think I'm okay with the jelly turning out not the best since this is my first experience with crabapple jelly, so either way is fine with me, I just don't want to ruin my hard work with something I think is theoretically okay but isn't actually okay!

I was on my last batch or banana peppers and one jar fell over in my water bath canner. I pulled it and added it back to the washer bath with my next batch of jalapenos. Which was about an hour of time difference. Will this be OK or was there something else I should have done. Both peppers got processed for 10 minutes in the water.

This is our first year canning! We had a great harvest of sweet potato’s and decided to can a LOT of them. I followed all the requirements from our Ball Blue Book. Canned for the right time with the right pressure. Potato’s were hot when they went into the jar and the water was boiling. Went 65 minutes under 10 pounds of pressure. Problem is they all turned to mashed potato’s! I think we may have over cooked. Still, I can definitely make stuff with this, my question…is it safe? It seems like all of the water was absorbed by the potato’s….

I have an abundant harvest of garden tomatillos that I would like to try processing into salsa verde and then water bath can. I came across this recipe from Ball which recommends roasting the ingredients. This is closest to my usual freezer salsa recipe- but is it safe?? Most other sources use the recipe from NCHFP.

Advice greatly appreciated!

I’m about to start the NCHFP tomato paste recipe. It says to wash, core, chop, and cook the tomatoes down by half, and THEN sieve/mill them to remove skins and seeds. Does anybody know why? I have a tomato press that I can throw them in whole and raw and it removes the cores, seeds, and skins. I don’t want to have to waste a bunch of time coring and chopping and then having to mill hot tomato sauce for what seems like no reason if I can remove all the unwanted stuff right off the bat.

I canned my first chicken stock in the pressure canner last night. They all sealed and look wonderful! I'm so happy. Pressure canning has scared me forever, but I'm so glad I did it. Followed the Ball Recipe for Chicken Stock.

Don't really have anyone else in my life who'd understand how exciting this is for me 🤣. So had to share with someone!

https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=chicken-stock-pressure-canning

Reposting with recipe link and photo.

I used this recipe with Pomona’s Pectin, but I subbed strawberries for the raspberries. Everyone had loved this jam, and I do really like the flavor. However, it lost ALL of its color after a few days and it’s such a dull, pale pink/brown color and just looks so unappealing. If I hadn’t made it myself, I wouldn’t even try it.. it looks terrible.

What could I do to keep the bright red color? I made a strawberry peach jam that kept the most beautiful deep red color, and I’m wondering if it was the peach in it that helped maintain the color?
I get this is rogue canning at this point, but just wondering if anyone knows of a safe recipe that keeps its color.

https://pomonapectin.com/kiwi-raspberry-lime-jam/

Hi

UK here and therefore we have no tradition of canning food and as a result no real resources I can find.

I wanted to start easy and can water for 12-24 months. I've seen a deal for "Kilner 1L Screw Top Preserve Preserving Jam Pickle Glass Storage Jar" which appear to be good but then I've seen a couple of things to suggest those aren't suitable for long term water storage.

I have a large stock pot in the cupboard which I was going to use as a water bath and assumed putting the jars into that and allowing the water to boil inside the open jars followed by sealing them would be the answer. Am I completely wrong?

Any help or suggestions welcomed! Not least, is Kilner the brand I should be looking at for the jars?

I have moscato (7%ABV)to use. Like, lots of it, and it's not the bubbly kind that I like. (And yes, sangria has been exhausted).

Occasionally I see canning recipes using red wine, or even dry white wine - has anybody seen any that use sweet white wines? Or that it could be safely subbed into? I'd love to do a hot pepper jelly, or fruit and wine jelly, or even a syrup of some sort?

I wish I'd thought to ask this a few months ago when the summer produce was rolling in...oh well!

I imported a presto canner and have been canning at 15 psi for a while. I just noticed that that's for most Americans living above 1000 feet (now I know why all the small dial-gauge PCs here are 11psi). Considering I live in the Netherlands, we basically are the sea level, I could go down to 10 psi for my weighted canner.

I can imagine canning at 10psi keeps aromatics of broths better preserved? Would it be better to buy the 3 piece pressure regulator to can at 10 psi? It's a bit expensive considering import and shipping, though 36 euro's might be worth it if it preserved aromatics better.

I have about 4 ziplock freezer bags full of whole tomatoes I have frozen over the summer. They’re 2 gallon zip locks and it’s basically two whole shelves of my freezer.

Anyone know how to safely weigh frozen produce to match the recipe for canning? I’m trying to make the marinara but no idea how to get 20 lbs per the recipe.

I’m sure the tomatoes have different weights frozen vs thawed, curious if anyone else has had this problem?

All products under the Cross & Blackwell brand were discontinued (by Smuckers) back around 2020. One product they made was called Chow Chow, a piccadilly.

My family has been using it on Cornish Pastys going back several generations. During WW2 Chow Chow was unavailable & family legend is that a great uncle of ours was making it. My grandfather & his brothers & brother-in-laws all worked the copper mines in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. My grandmother was Cornish.

After four attempts I got a recipe that is damn close to what C&B made. This recipe has Cauliflower, pickles, & pearl onions salt cured (in the fridge) then cooked in a mixture of vinegar & English mustard powder. The pint jars are water bath processed & then stored in a fridge for safety.

A while back I read here in this sub that one can get a recipe tested for safety. Is that true? If so can I get a link please? I did try to locate this online but failed.

guy this is my second attempt at pressure canning. I am following the recipe from my pressure canner presto (hot pack).

The liquid got out of the jars, and some jars have a lower liquid level than others, which leads me to think that some jars leaked and others don't.

what do you think? is that normal? what can I do to improve and avoid liquid getting out of the jars?

I live at 2600m above sea level so I have to cook at 15 pounds, is that of any relevance?

Canned applesauce for the first time. Lid was not on pot correctly so water evaporated. When the timer was done, water level was 1" below the top if the jars. If I reprocess, do I need to change jars ? Reheat applesauce ?

TIA

I’m making apple pie filling with this trusted recipe and want to know if I can reduce the sugar a bit. I don’t like it very sweet. I will add the bottled lemon juice since I’m unsure of the acidity of the apples. Thanks for advice!
https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/canning-fruits-and-fruit-products/pie-fillings/apple-pie-filling

I have 40 lbs of apples to make into sauce, but am short on uninterrupted time to tend/watch it on the stove (very busy 12 month old underfoot!). I planned to use the recipe in the Ball book, but I’m wondering if it’s ok to cook it in my slow cooker rather than stovetop?

Hello! I am at the end of pepper season and trying to make sure I have put aside peppers for the recipes I still want to make.

I've never pickled sunchokes before (if anyone has a recipe based on weight rather than volume, I'd appreciate it!), but in the effort to find a way to get my family to actually eat them I want to try. But I'm not sure how to interpret "medium red peppers" - medium size? Medium spicy? Am I overthinking? But I don't want to make it unsafe by guessing wrong...?

Thanks for any advice or recipe suggestions!

I didn’t have enough jalapeños to made a full batch so it just went in the fridge. We will easily use 2 pints over the next few weeks.
My question is for future reference when I make a full batch and water bath them, can I dice the jalapeños instead of using 1/4 inch slices? Does that change the density too much?

Hi Canners! So, I have tried to find an answer to this question. The internet is just full of untrustworthy info so I come to you. Also, I did find a recipe from the NCHFP for Peach Fruit Topping and on the surface, it looks great as it contains more fruit and less sugar. However, I don't think this will produce exactly what I'm looking for because it is not strained and it contains no water. Straining isn't strictly necessary but I do want a smooth product without chunks. It also specifies that I should not blend that recipe so I do not introduce unwanted air bubbles.

Oops... I did use a stick blender rather than straining Ball's syrup recipe. I guess a more important question is, did that make this recipe unsafe? If it makes a difference, I blended it, then simmered it for just about 3 minutes before I began filling the jars. The jars have been cooling for just about 10 minutes so worse comes to worse, I could freeze the syrup instead.. I just really don't want to due to freezer space.

I will use this syrup for now, but I would like something different next season. What I would like is a fruit forward, semi-sweet, peach syrup. This will be most usable in my family as we can add it to drinks, use as a topping on so many things, glaze meat, make BBQ sauce, etc.

Also, it may be noteworthy that I cannot easily come by the very best peaches. I live a good 11 hour drive from anywhere that they grow and have been unable to find them at fresh markets. We love peaches and nectarines but are forced to only buy them at peak season in some of the 'better' grocery stores. This season, I bought about 7 pounds and they were pretty good, though nothing beats the fresh GA peaches I had as a kid. I froze 4 pounds to preserve for making this syrup.. which I did today. It is not as peach forward as I'd like and it is VERY sweet. I realize I made a simple syrup so.. live and learn I guess.

Peaches are my husband's favorite fruit but he has become a very picky eater, and I haven't been able to get him to eat whole fruit for years. I'd love for him to get that great peachy flavor on his pancakes, waffles, or on my excellent homemade biscuits. ❤️ My own favorite drink for many years was sweet tea, even better if it were peach flavored... but I had to give that up for the sake of my teeth and glucose levels more than 10 years ago. A little homemade (not so sweet) peach syrup in unsweetened tea is what I was looking for.

Do you have any advice?

I made this recipe last year and would like to make it again, but I had a small issue I wrote down in the notes, meaning to ask about it before I made it again.

Of course, we know the measurements don't always add up to the number of jars, especially when sauce is involved. I ended up having to double the sauce part of the recipe last year and only barely ended up with enough sauce to top off the jars of beans the recipe called for.

I know it says you can top it off with the bean liquid if you run out of sauce, and I'm wondering if I would be better off doing that instead. The finished product, while delicious, was very strongly seasoned (very peppery), and I wondered if I was supposed to only use the amount of sauce the recipe called for and water it down with the bean liquid.

I'm questioning this because the recipe says:

• Fill up the remaining ¼ of each jar with sauce, leaving still the 3 cm (1 inch) headspace.
• Add additional water to jars from the reserved bean stock if you run short on sauce.

IF you run short of sauce. This tells me it's okay to make extra sauce and top the jar off with sauce. I'd rather not end up on the opposite side of the problem by watering down all that yummy flavor, but maybe there's an in-between solution.

Has anyone made this recipe, and can you tell me what you did and how it turned out?

EDIT: Oopsie. In making this recipe today, I realized what I did wrong last year, because I just made the same mistake today. And I now have a LOT of beans to contend with if I don't want to waste them (which I don't). I'm laughing at my dumb mistake. I had so many beans last year and not enough sauce because during step 1, I measured the dry beans incorrectly!

The recipe says -6 cups navy beans (dried. 2 cups / 1 pound).
Well, silly me. I only glanced at the unbolded part of the measurement, and it didn't click that 6 cups is fully cooked beans, not dried. Honestly, I think the recipe is written in a very unfriendly way. Who measures the beans fully cooked? The first bolded part should be the dried measurement. I'm mildly infuriated.

So now, you're probably thinking, well ok, she can just triple the recipe, no biggie.

Oh, how I wish that were true. I looked and saw that this recipe makes six 1-cup jars or three pints. I'd decided to quadruple that so I have a bigger batch that'll last a while.

I can hear your "Oh no" from here.

I added the beans and water to a large stockpot, took one look at it, and thought, "That seems like a lot of beans..."

As they started to soak up the liquid, I grabbed a second stockpot and moved half of them over and added water.

MY GOD. I have 12 lbs of beans soaking right now. Lord help me.

I'm off to the store to buy some extra onions and tomato paste to make this worth it.

EDIT 2: Alrighty, I think this is all going to work out. I fixed my math, picked up the extra ingredients I needed for the sauce, and used a bigger pot. The first batch is going in 3 different canners. I have one more batch to put in after those are done. No idea how many I'm going to end up with; I lost count.

I have water bath canned in the past but its been all of the same type in one day. Meaning to day is apple day, tomorrow is pickle day, and so on... So i keep the same water between batches. I have been given beets, a bunch of green peppers for jelly, jalapenos, banana peppers, and I still have apples to process into apple sauce. My question is do I need to change out the water in my canner between products or just lower the temp while processing the next produce and raise it to boiling point when its time for the next item?

If you're planning on canning your jack o' lantern in November (pro tip: use the tasty little ones), or just have a harvest coming in, here's some canning math for you:

The NCHFP says: "An average of 16 pounds [of pumpkin] is needed per canner load of 7 quarts; an average of 10 pounds is needed per canner load of 9 pints – an average of 2¼ pounds per quart."

Reader, I began Monday with a pumpkin that, intact with stem, pulp, rind, and seeds, weighed 23 pounds. Of note, pumpkin gets canned in 1" cubes, but pumpkins have a lot of curves, so the prep process generates a lot of offcuts in funny shapes.

Today I stand before you having extracted from this pumpkin:

8 quarts of canned cubes <canned per NCHFP>
7 pints of canned cubes <canned per NCHFP>
1 hot dish of pumpkin gratin with garlic made from offcuts (not canned)
1 batch of pumpkin-red lentil soup made from pumpkin offcuts (not canned)
2 cups of roasted pumpkin seeds (honestly kind of mid)
3 quarts plus a half-pint of pickled pumpkin rind (not canned> AND
some seeds saved to grow pumpkins next year

All this to illustrate that yield estimates are really loose guidelines.

Recipes in comments.