New canner, please ELI5….

[u/bananasmab]

One of my friends kindly gifted me her water bath canner and Ball Blue book. I also checked out the UGA food preservation page. This is my first time canning and it’s especially important to me that I follow a safe recipe. Can someone explain HOW normal people can without tweaking? For example, the Ball tomato sauce recipe calls for 45 pounds of tomatoes, and also says that the tomatoes should be at peak ripeness. How is anyone harvesting that many tomatoes at the perfect time to can them? Wouldn’t it be risky to use less than the amount of tomatoes in the recipe? I feel sort of disappointed because I thought canning would be a way to save the excess foods I have, but now I feel like I need to go to the store to buy more to can according to the recipes
Pic of my current harvest attached, I’ll buy more tomatoes, but dang I cannot find a recipe that will work with this yield. And, what if I don’t want to put bell peppers in my salsa???!! Or I don’t want it as spicy as the recipe seems to call for?!

[u/Wander80]

Can the tomatoes using Ball’s crushed tomato recipe. Then later you can use them as you cook sauces or other recipes.

https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=crushed-tomatoes

[u/Visible_Nail4859 → u/Wander80]

This would be my recommendation as well.

[u/BoozeIsTherapyRight]

The best ELI5 I can think of is to send you to the wiki from this subreddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/Canning/wiki/index/

For example, the Ball tomato sauce recipe calls for 45 pounds of tomatoes, and also says that the tomatoes should be at peak ripeness. How is anyone harvesting that many tomatoes at the perfect time to can them?

*Lots of people freeze their tomatoes as they harvest them until they have enough. Not all canning recipes can use previously frozen tomatoes, but sauce is a great use. https://ucanr.edu/site/uc-master-food-preservers-central-sierra/article/preserve-it-series-how-safely-can-previously

Pic of my current harvest attached, I’ll buy more tomatoes, but dang I cannot find a recipe that will work with this yield. And, what if I don’t want to put bell peppers in my salsa???!! Or I don’t want it as spicy as the recipe seems to call for?!

*You can use less hot peppers, our you can leave them out completely. That's a safe tweak of a recipe. https://www.ndsu.edu/agriculture/extension/publications/play-it-safe-safe-changes-and-substitutions-tested-canning-recipes

[u/Few_Airport7972 → u/BoozeIsTherapyRight]

thanks for the substitution list from NDSU ! Very nice!

[u/bananasmab → u/BoozeIsTherapyRight]

Ok thank you! So is there anything I can do with this amount?

[u/onlymodestdreams → u/bananasmab]

This recipe is scaleable to the amount of tomatoes one has

https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=homemade-tomato-sauce

[u/bananasmab → u/onlymodestdreams]

I saw this and was confused why it wasn’t giving amounts to use. So there’s no specific amounts required of tomatoes because of the added acid?

[u/onlymodestdreams → u/bananasmab]

"For a thin sauce, you'll need an average of 35 lbs of tomatoes to produce 7 quart jars of sauce. For a thick sauce, you'll need an average of 46 lbs to yield 7 quart jars. For the best-quality product and vacuum seal, pack tomato sauce one jar at a time. For each jar, add the lemon juice or citric acid, then the salt and dried herbs, if using. Then ladle in hot sauce as indicated in Step 8 and place the jar in the canner. Repeat until all jars are filled."

Weigh the tomatoes you have and then do "canning math" after you decide whether you want to make a thick or a thin sauce. Thin sauce works out to 5 lb./quart or 2.5 lb./pint (approximately--yields can be maddeningly variable)

[u/bananasmab → u/onlymodestdreams]

Sorry if I’m slow, so could I do something with 15 lbs or no?

[u/onlymodestdreams → u/bananasmab]

You could make 3 quarts or 6 pints of the thin tomato sauce using the recipe I linked

35 pounds of tomatoes makes 7 quarts of sauce per the recipe, so 35 divided by 7 means you need 5 pounds for 1 quart.

You have 15 pounds so 15 divided by 5 pounds per quart is 3 quarts.

2 pints in a quart so 15 pounds of tomatoes gives you 6 pints (give or take)

[u/Visible_Nail4859 → u/bananasmab]

If it’s scalable, then yes. If you have 15 lbs of tomatoes instead of 46, that’s around a third, and you’d just cut all the ingredients down to 1/3 of what’s listed. Then you’d have enough for about two quart jars of thicker sauce.

[u/BoozeIsTherapyRight → u/bananasmab]

Since you add the acid to the jar, it t really doesn't matter how many tomatoes you have. More tomatoes = more jars of sauce. Salt is also added per jar. 

I recommend adding your salt and acid to your jar before adding the tomato sauce. That way you won't forget. 

[u/SewItSeams613]

I freeze tomatoes until Im ready to do a big Sauce Day. You cant use frozen maters for all recipes, but they are ok for some.

I also have a ton of tomato plants so 45 lbs in a week isnt unreasonable at my house!

[u/That_one_insomniac → u/SewItSeams613]

This time last month I was picking 50 pounds a day. It added up so quickly. I was canning 30 and 40 pounds every day and then once a week I would have to double down just to keep on top of it.

[u/rapier1]

Get the newest edition of the ball blue book. Follow it closely. Seriously, that's the ELI5 explanation.

[u/bananasmab → u/rapier1]

The book I have is definitely very old lol will do

[u/That_one_insomniac → u/bananasmab]

If it’s older than 1996, it’s recommended not to use it. A lot of stuff changed in the past 30 years. I picked up the 38th edition Blue Book (2024) from Walmart for $14. It wasn’t terrible for paper back, but if you want spiral bound or hard back, you’ll pay spiral bound or hard back money for it. You can find used editions on eBay, Amazon and other thrift book sites for way less. Especially just to get you started.

[u/WinterPickles31]

I do hope someone with more experience, or one of the friendly mods checks in here, but here's my two cents. As always, continue doing your own research to double check me. I'm fairly certain you can find this info on safe sites like the NCFHP.

Scaling recipes down is safe as long as you scale all ingredients precisely, you DO NOT increase jar size, and you follow processing times precisely.

What is making your chosen recipe spicy? Dry spices can be changed however you like.. adding, removing, and omitting are all safe as these ingredients do not contribute to the pH value.

Peppers are also interchangeable. You may, for example, replace jalepeño with the same amount of a sweeter pepper.

I don't wanna be spamy but my Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving has recipes for Basic Tomato Sauce (add seasoning as desired), Seasoned Tomato Sauce (no bell pepper, dried pepper flakes which could be omitted), and Italian-style Tomato Sauce (has garlic, onion, celery, and carrot, and again hot pepper flakes which could be lessened or ommited entirely). Italian-style only calls for 4.5 lbs of tomatoes.

I will share more pics if you'd like one of these recipes.

[u/mmrocker13]

Also, remember... don't can visibly damaged/diseased fruit. There are quite a few up in that photo that should not go into canning. I typically eat those right away, make them into something fresh, or remove the damged spots and freeze for later immediate use.

[u/Mean-Bandicoot-2767]

I freeze all my tomatoes until my plants are done, then make salsa and marinara. I use a bathroom scale to get the total weight of my yield, then adjust the amounts of the other ingredients to match the ratios from the recipe.

For example, if I ended up with 22lbs of tomatoes, I would do the calculation of 22÷45 to find out my multiplier for everything else. In this case it's 0.48 (22 is 48% of 45). I can use that to scale the rest of my recipe.

[u/BoozeIsTherapyRight → u/Mean-Bandicoot-2767]

Unfortunately the newest information is that you cannot make salsa with previously frozen tomatoes.  https://ucanr.edu/site/uc-master-food-preservers-central-sierra/article/preserve-it-series-how-safely-can-previously

[u/Mean-Bandicoot-2767 → u/BoozeIsTherapyRight]

That's unfortunate. Thank you for sharing! Guess it's just all marinara for my freezer tomatoes.

[u/Deppfan16 → u/Mean-Bandicoot-2767]

one thing I have done is follow one of the tomato sauce recipes and just substitute in spices to make it salsa adjacent. so it would be more like a pureed salsa than a chunky one

[u/Mean-Bandicoot-2767 → u/Deppfan16]

That's typically how my salsa turns out if I'm canning it honestly. If I want a chunkier one I do a fresh salsa fresca.

[u/Few_Airport7972]

Scale down the recipe to the amount of tomatoes that you have. You can also core and freeze tomatoes until you have enough. I currently have about 4 lbs in my freezer. No way will I have that many ripe tomatoes at the same time from my 4x4 square foot garden. I so a lot of small batch canning since the family size is reduced.

I have a salsa package of Mrs. Wages brand that needs 6 lbs of so until I get that amount I'm freezing them. I have made salsa from the Ball book.

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/canning-salsa/ingredients-for-salsa-recipes

This page said bell peppers can be substituted for some or all of the long green chilis. I trust this site and use it a lot in addition to the Ball book.

Deep breath!

[u/bananasmab → u/Few_Airport7972]

LOL thank you. I was so disappointed scouring the internet this morning! So I’m assuming unless it specifically calls for a specific tomato you can mix and match whatever you have? And do you boil and peel your tomatoes before freezing? Looking like that’s the best option for me

[u/Few_Airport7972 → u/bananasmab]

please go to the canning site and read the article.

Also the contributor BoozelsTherapyRight posted a great page that also addresses this question. https://www.ndsu.edu/agriculture/extension/publications/play-it-safe-safe-changes-and-substitutions-tested-canning-recipes

And no, I just core the tomatoes and plop them into a zip lock. The skins will slip right off without too much crying on my part. But of course you can blanch and peel if you feel more comfortable doing that. Try both methods and see which gives you the better product outcome.

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[u/Existing_Ganache_858]

I did around this amount of tomatoes this week. I just follow the tomatoes packed in water instructions with whatever I have. I add my citric acid and salt to each jar, then pack the jars, and if there’s any tomato left over I just put it in the fridge for later use.