If you’re making jack o’lanterns this week, use an old canning lid to get the guts out. It works amazingly well!

Posting here because I need someone who will understand.

Been saving my apple cores and peels for the last week while preserving all my apples in a dozen different ways. Finally started my apple scrap jelly today - I was gonna have about 14 half pints to share as Christmas gifts. Spent hours cooking the apples down. Added almost an entire bag of sugar, almost an entire bottle of lemon juice. Had all my jars cleaned and prepped. Thought I’d attach my candy thermometer to the pot to help me watch the temp. Well the clip jumped off the side of the pot and the thermometer dropped a single inch to the pan - and shattered.

I am crushed. I’ve been teaching myself to water bath can as preps to really scaling my homestead garden next year and this feels like a kick in the teeth. I’m sure it’s just the first of many!

Have you ever noticed that friends seem to feel oddly entitled to ask for your home canned items? Context: I post about my urban homestead on my personal insta, just to share about my life, no huge following or fancy content. Every single time I post a successful canning day, someone I kind of know but am not close with asks for a jar. It’s so bizarre?! Anyone understand what about home canning brings out the acquaintance gimmes?

I have a 10 pound weight on my pressure canner. And it's spinning around like crazy and releasing steam. But the little pressure gauge to the right is not popped up. Is this an issue? Anyone know why it's not popping up?

I read advice here on pressure canners. After considering the All American vs Presto I decided on Presto, largely because of the weight difference.

Is there a reason not to buy the induction capable model? I have a regular ceramic stovetop, but who knows what I’ll be using 5-10 years from now.

Thanks!

Not sure where I am going wrong. I pressure canned 6 quarts of chili. Using brand new ball jars and new superb lids. Filled it with 1” headspace, cleaned rim properly, loaded, and maintained a constant 10.5 psi for 90 minutes. Afterwards I let it drop pressure, removed weight and lid, removed jars carefully and had 4 not seal. I reprocessed those 4 but utilized new ball lids and only had 1 seal.

I am new to canning, only have canned salmon, chicken thigh, chicken drum, and beef stew. But have had one 1 seal failures to this point. Any tips on why this may be happening?

I did the 1-quart "test run" recipe of the USDA apple pie filling to see if we like it - it turned out very good with gala apples. This is in the fridge now and will be used up as a topping over yogurt and ice cream, yum!

I really like the idea of testing out a small amount to make sure you like the final product. It also allowed me to test out canning apple products for the first time. I blanched the apples and left a generous 1" headspace, happy to report no siphoning!

Two things I learned for the full run:

1. I cannot eyeball 0.5", I need to measure because my apple pieces were cut way too thin.

2. I do have some serious air bubbles even after de-bubbling thoroughly. Does anyone have advice on de-bubbling apple pie filling thickened with Clear Jel?

from healthycanning. I made some, not opened yet, can someone tell me what it tastes like? Would it sub for Heinz chile sauce I need for a recipe??

Thanks Roasted Tomato Guajillo Salsa - Healthy Canning in Partnership with Facebook Group Canning for beginners, safely by the book

I canned tomato soup yesterday. I realized this morning I didn’t put any acid in the jars and it might all be a waste. I also used a pressure canning recipe but I used the water bath method. I did a bit of research and none of it sounds like it’s in my favour and being human kinda sucks sometimes.

Here is the recipe: https://www.therusticelk.com/canning-tomato-soup/?utm_source=Pinterest&utm_medium=organic#mv-creation-174-jtr

I water bathed for 50 minutes and it has been sitting on the counter since last night.

PLEASE HELP ME, it breaks my heart knowing I might have to throw it all away. Posting in different groups to get all the opinions

I am always impressed with what people are sharing they canned on here. This is just my own curiosity-- are you growing your ingredients for canning or buying them? If so, is this Farmer's Market produce?

I would love to hear from people-- how much do you grow and how much canning you get out of that. For example, this year I had 4 tomato plants and I have 12 pints of pizza sauce, 20 pints crushed tomatoes, and 6 pints salsa stashed away. That by no means was all my tomatoes, as I use lots fresh and mostly make fresh salsa.

I also did buy a box of peaches at the Farmer's Market and made 8 half pints of peach habanero jam using habaneros from the garden.

Your turn! I would love to hear what you grow (how many plants) or bought and then what you made!

The picture isn't that great, but I picked my beets from my garden finally and pickled them. Used the recipe from Healthy Canning. Can't wait to try them!

Now for my question... I would like to make the Ball beef stew recipe. But, I'm wondering how to keep proportions of the meat, potato, and carrots right in each jar if I'm ladeling pre-mixed stew into jars. I thought about separating everything for the pre-cook (meat in one pot, potatoes in another, carrots/onion/celery in a third) and layering it in the jars so I can better control how much of each ingredient goes in each jar. I'm thinking it would be a density issue having each ingredient consolidated in one spot. But, I figured I'd ask the experts here before I try it. Either way, I'm still making the recipe, but if my plan is not safe then I'll scrap it and follow the directions. Thanks!

I have a Mirro 12 qt pressure canner. My understanding is the minimum jars in a batch is 4 pints or 2 quarts. Correct?

So if I have 3 pints of product - do I just use another pint jar with water and lid/ring? I have saved some used lids for this purpose. Thanks

I was simmering stock on the stove last night and one of my children turned it off. I was off all night. It wasn't maybe Lukewarm this morning. I set it on high and get it going on a hard boil this am. But is it safe? Do I need to toss it?

We just got some new shelves for our basement. Planning on setting up a basement grocery store with my full jars :) but I’m also looking for creative and space efficient ways of storing the empties! Right now, I just have haphazard cardboard moving boxes full of jars

I pressed some tomatoes but don’t have time to can them just yet. How long do pressed tomatoes last before canning?

What are your favorites?

I have 5lbs of tomatoes, is is safe to scale this recipe down to 25% and water bath can? Or should I just do crushed tomatoes and make tomato sauce from the crushed tomatoes? https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=basil-garlic-tomato-sauce

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!

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 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.

I would love to make my own in bulk, I'm a big fan of them but they're pricey

I canned bone broth for the first time over a week ago at 15 psi for 25 minutes. Before that I can cooled it and skimmed the fat layer off then canned it. I’m just not sure if it’s supposed to look like this and I’m cooking a roast with it today. I just don’t want to get my family sick so I’m gonna be the test dummy. Do you think it’s safe to eat?

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.

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/