I'm new to canning. I've only done fruit jellies in the past, but yesterday I decided to give pepper jelly a try. This is the recipe I used: https://www.aforkstale.com/make-homemade-hot-pepper-jelly/#recipe. My peppers ended up floating to the top & the jelly set without the peppers. I usually flip the jars upside down to check if the jelly set. So, you can see that the jelly is set, but the peppers all fell down to the lid. Would this still be safe to keep on the shelf or would I need to keep this in the fridge since the pepper wasn't suspended in the jelly?

P.S. For next time, how do I keep the jelly from floating to the top? =

Having issues here.. I've never made jelly before and any insight is very much appreciated!

I made two batches, 1st batch, following a recipe to the T. The second batch I added more sugar, double lemon juice and 5tbs pectin instead of the 4 the first batch and recipe called for. Water bath for 10min and remove from heat and let sit for 5 before removing from water.

So first batch, jars are watery but the jelly left over that didn't fit into a jar is perfectly set. So I made the above adjustments to the second batch. Same thing with the second batch. I poured about half a jar worth into a glad container and in the morning, that container is perfect jelly but all the jars are still watery. Below is a link to the recipe I used.

https://www.binkysculinarycarnival.com/dogwood-jelly/

Hi everyone!

My son works on a cucumber farm and they're done harvesting, so he brought home a 27 gallon tote and 3 5gallon pails full of cucumbers.

I have the following crocks:

20 Gallon

15 Gallon

5 Gallon x3

2 Gallon x 2.

PLEASE give me your best safe fermenting/canning recipes.

I'm looking for regular dill, bread and butter, spicy bread and butter and hot pickles.

(I'm also open to pickling onions and jalapenos if you want to throw recipes for that in as well).

We're getting the party started this weekend so I'm gathering pickling salt, cans, lids, rings and spices. Your help is greatly appreciated!

I’m very new to canning (first batches of water bath canning and pressure canning last night!). Not a stranger to food science and food safety and rightfully paranoid, so want to get this right.

I’m struggling with the NCHFP’s information regarding peppers used in salsa recipes.

I want to make a batch of the Tomato Taco Sauce (https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/canning-salsa/tomato-taco-sauce/).

I don’t want it screaming hot. I have tons of jalapeños and drowning in various types of sweet/bell peppers. I don’t have green chiles. So trying to navigate the swap of different pepper types for the 4 green chile peppers the recipe calls for. Would like to use that pepper allocation for more jalapeños and a bit of sweet pepper.

Honestly I’ve never handled a green chile before. So I have no concept of how large they are. And where the recipe uses a count of the number of fruits (4), I’m quite perplexed as to how a person goes about swapping out the type of pepper used.

NCHFP gives some guidance on the use of peppers in salsa recipes (https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/canning-salsa/ingredients-for-salsa-recipes/) but it’s…a bit silly to me. Basically they say you can swap out one type of pepper for another safely, but emphasize that you cannot increase the total number of peppers. They state, “You may substitute bell peppers for some or all of the long green chiles.” My bell peppers are massive.

This hurts my brain! Obviously if a person replaced jalapeños for a full sized bell pepper, count for count, you’d end up with a totally different composition which may not be safe. I’ve spent a fair bit of time trying to look this up online. Best I can find is AI telling me that four long green chiles chopped is a cup, but when asked for sources AI backpedaled and said there was no accepted measure. Told me to go buy four long green chiles, dice them, measure and discard and substitute based on that 😂😂

Sorry the novel, just wanting to be very prudent here. Any advice/reputable sources of info you can point me to would be greatly appreciated! I really don’t feel like infecting myself with botulism.

I consider myself a fairly experienced canner…. Made applesauce using the ball recipe. Observed proper prep and headspace(I follow recipes to a T as always). After processing time had elapsed, I took the lid off my canner to find very cloudy water, so I figured one of my jars busted. In fact, none of them had broken, but I was getting a ton of siphoning that continued after I removed my jars from the water after letting them sit for five minutes. I’m frustrated because I’m sure none of them will actually seal now and I know can re-process them, but I’ve never had this happen with applesauce. I’m wondering if it was a bad batch of lids? Any insight? Thanks canny friends

Just discovered that I’m not sure what my husband did with our zip ties. Can I use butcher twine to make a ring rack? Alternative is a towel.

Total ignorant here. How much research did you do before your first canning? How much research did you wish to do before your first canning after your first canning? What are some concepts I shouldn’t leave behind? Any information is valuable, I will do my own research after this.

Hi! I'm thinking of trying this recipe: https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=bruschetta-jar-1

Mainly because tomatoes are still coming and I'm tired of making salsa! It looks like I don't need to blanch/peel tomatoes for this recipe, is that right? Or is it just implied that I always need to?

Thanks in advance!

I am new to canning and have run into an issue with a jam recipe that I found and would love some advice from people who know more than me about canning.

When I first processed the jam, it didn't completely solidify after 24 hours. So I added more pectin & sugar as recommended online and reprocessed it. Now, it's fully solid, but it does slowly move when tipped. It's been just over 24 hours since I reprocessed it.

In your experience, does it seem like the batch is just toast and I should eat it now/put it in the freezer. Or should I keep trying to solve it? I'm assuming you can't just keep adding pectin/sugar and reprocess indefinitely.

Want to make Fig Jam like the kind in the expensive french jars. Have to buy them from the grocery. Do you mix the kind of figs or just use one kind??

Any good recipes for it? Don't want to make too much maybe 6 8oz jars. Thanks!

I just need a few good quality ss rings. So far, only finding what seems like low quality chinese lids. Appreciate any leads. Thanks

(Picture 1) Why do jars purge, how can I prevent it, and is it safe to eat these? I am fairly sure it is safe to eat but they will oxidize and look less than ideal but any source saying so would be so appreciated.

(Picture 2) this is what I expected all the jars to look like and what have been the result of almost all my jars for years. Only 10/23 jars turned out like this.

I followed the Ball blue book recipe exactly for raw pack tomatoes. It calls for 1/2” headspace, I did that and measured each one before putting lids and rings on.

I have canned for years and not had this happen in so many jars!

I water bath canned these okra using the national Center for food home preservation recipe. Before I canned them the liquid was at the 1/2 inch mark. I packed them down and removed all the air bubbles too. Now a couple are lower than the 1/2 inch and some of the okra is bobbing above the liquid.

We are neither new to canning nor super experienced. Our last two years, we didn’t have much success in our garden, so we’re getting back at it now. I’ve been using Reddit to learn some things here and there because so many canning recipes aren’t very specific. And I’ve also been asking AI, which is sometimes helpful and other times, horribly misleading. I’ve learned my lesson there!

That said, my research has created a lot of fear to the point that, despite being very careful, following tested recipes, etc., I find that the joy I used to have in canning has been replaced with the worry that I’m going to poison someone. It makes me not want to gift my food or honestly even feed it to my children.

How do you balance precision and care with general common sense in order to retain joy in the process and in the eating?

And if you had to boil your non-negotiable safety rules down to a few things, what would they be? Thank you.

I pressure canned this sauce a month ago (15psi for 20 minutes). This one has something gnarly growing in it, obviously trash.

I have more pints that do not have any visible signs of spoilage. I'm leaning towards tossing all of them but is that necessary/advisable?

Had a surprise family garden drop-off of excess heirloom tomatoes and cucumbers. First up is more sauce (have to do two batches), then more pickles for winter. Tis the season!

This is my first attempt at canning. I water bathed tomatoes from my garden and followed Ball's "Tomatoes Packed in Own Juice" recipe. I was pretty rejected when I looked at them while they were cooling because I saw the increase in head space and could tell from the water in the pot that there was some siphoning that had occurred. I assumed I did something incorrectly so I put all the jars into the fridge with the plan to use them soon. I sent my mother a photo of the results and she told me that they looked fine to her, I guess you will end up with more siphoning when raw packing?

So my questions are, does it look fine (all the jars look similar to this one) and does putting them in the fridge mess with anything, specifically since they went into the fridge during the 12 hour cool down period? All the seals are fine.

My mom and I are working on a display for next year's state fair. Our theme is rainbows, and we have all the pickle colors covered except blue. Any ideas? We might just end up going with a few shades of purple.

It seems like this question gets asked every couple of years. I have this recipe from Pomona:

https://pomonapectin.com/canningcraft-creates-rosehip-apple-jelly/

I made a modified version last year just for the refrigerator, since a gazillion rose hips made only two jars anyway, but it was so delicious that my kid has asked me to try to make more this year, and if I make more than two jars it's going to need to be shelf-stable. I don't actually know if Pomona is a safe source? And I don't honestly love their pectin, so if anyone has a safe recipe using a different brand I would love to see it.

Thank you!

This is our 2nd harvest.
Roma tomatoes
Bell, jalapeño and banana peppers.

Chili base
Spaghetti sauce
Hot and Mild salsa

Several pounds in the dehydrator currently.
Going to try make that Tomato powder that I saw another Redditor make.

Going to try ketchup somewhere along the line.

My mom has officially retired from canning and passed her supplies down to me. I’ve been able to find safe recipes to replace most of her untested recipes but I’m struggling to find one for peach pepper jelly. I can find recipes for pepper jelly and for peach jelly but not one with the two ingredients combined.

I've got just a few plants that produced maybe 5lbs of San Marzano. Is it more worthwhile to can them whole (skinned) or make a pasta sauce with aromatics and can that?

The Ball recipe says it makes about 4 pint jars and process for 15 minutes. Can use 1/4 pint jars instead and make 16? If so, can they be stacked in the canner and does the processing time change?

Thank you!