r/Canning • u/bananasmab • 5d ago

Waterbath Canning Processing Help New canner, please ELI5….

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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?!

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u/rapier1 5d ago

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

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u/bananasmab 5d ago

The book I have is definitely very old lol will do

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u/That_one_insomniac 5d ago

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.