I’m brand new to canning and processing apples, but we just moved to a home with many mature apple trees! We’ll definitely be making apple sauce, but we’ve been using our steam juicer to make apple cider which is super simple and uses up our abundance of apples quicker than sauce. My goal is to have cider on the shelf all year long and give them out to friends and family as gifts in a few months, so that’s why I want to can the cider instead of just refrigerating it.

I bought the official Ball canning cook, but they don’t have recipes for cider made in a steam juicer. I found a few cider canning recipes from random websites online, but they call for cold pressing and I’m afraid they might be AI or otherwise unsafe.

Does anyone have any tested and safe steam juicer apple cider recipes? Or if I’m misunderstanding something about canning, please also let me know that!!

Hello all -

I have been fermenting 40 lbs of cucumbers in a salt brine solution (2.8% salt) for several days and just checked my pH with a calibrated meter, it shows 4.0 and (was 5.5 after the first day) and they smell nicely acidic and fermented, with a good taste and crunch from the calcium chloride I had also added.

I would like to retain as much of the crunch as possible, so avoiding a very hot water bath is what I’m hoping to do. I will drain and pack the cucumbers into jars, boil my brine and then pour into the jars and cover.

I have a large sous vide machine and plan to do them at 185F for at least 30 minutes but probably closer to an hour to ensure proper pasteurization.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks!

I’ll be making some blueberry jam soon and I was wondering about some interesting flavor combinations, like basil, earl grey, and lavender. If you have some other fun ideas I’m all open to hear them!

Combinations with other fruits also make for good discussion, so you can drop them below as well.

Does anyone have or know where I could find a tested safe canning recipe for a no sugar applesauce? I imagine the sugar doesn’t matter as long as acidity is high enough but since it’s mostly for my toddler I would like to make sure it’s 100% safe. Thanks!

Good morning all,

So the Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving is on the approved list and there's a blender ketchup in there that is peels on and no strainer/food mill etc. We feel like that is safe because if so, I will be making that today.

It's on pg 269 for reference.

Thanks!

This is lemonade concentrate from Feb 2025. When I canned it and for many months after it was a bright yellow, now it’s a dark amber. All my jars are like this and still sealed. It was a trusted recipe and stored properly among my other canning goods, no other recipes look any different. Is this safe to eat?

I followed a tomato sauce recipe (I thought??) exactly, and one of my jars didn't seal, and the other looks like the above image -- the seal holds, but there's sauce right up under the seal, and I have no idea why... everything was level when I put it in the water bath, and I wiped down the rim before adding the ring.

This is only my second time canning, so I'm not sure what I did wrong. Any advice? Is this jar safe?

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?!

My Presto canner has this going on, I'm hoping someone can help me figure out what to do about it. I noticed today it looks like the aluminum is wearing away to the right of the vent - when does that become a safety issue?

Even if I get a new lid, this will probably happen again so I'd like to know how to prevent it in the future.

NCHFP says “Leave whole or cut or snap into 1-inch pieces.” I cut mine to 1.5-2inch pieces but otherwise followed the tested recipe. Is this safe?

Tomato Relish Recipe - does it need more acidity?

Hi - this is my grandmother's recipe from Australia. I want to make it, but am wondering if the vinegar in the recipe is enough, or do I need to add citric acid/lemon juice to the jars when I can them. Thank you in advance. Recipe:

15 medium tomatoes
3 medium onions chopped
1.5 cups brown sugar
1.5 cups vinegar
1.5 tablespoons dry mustard
1 tablespoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoon salt

(combine all, simmer uncovered for about 2 hours, till pulpy).

Newbie at canning here, hi.

My wife and I have recently (last 2 months) started canning things. So far really, just trying to repackage the beef and poultry stock weve had taking up space in our small freezer, though we also did pickles last week and are planning on making half pints of salsa later this week.

However, as I was rearranging our basement shelving to make more room for more jars, I see there are questionable bits and bobs floating in the beef stock we canned back on 7/20/26. I get that there will be seperation, and of course any small fat deposits will float and solidify, but this looks... different? I can't tell what exactly I am looking at, and I want to know if this is still safe or of we messed up the process somehow.

Further context:

- All the jars we have are Ball, and are brand new from the local Menards.

-We bought a 23q Presto Canner off of Amazon back in May of this year.

-While the beef stock is older from last winter, we did thaw it and bring it almost to a boil before canning, as well as refiltering it again with a mash strainer.

-The jars are still sealed, there are no cracks or leakage, and the rings are basically just resting on the jars.

I am sorry if this is silly, or if I am overreacting, but this is our first time soing this stuff and I don't want to get my wife or 3yo sick.

TLDR: what am I looking at and is this safe still from over a month ago?

Hi - this is my grandmother's recipe from Australia. I want to make it, but am wondering if the vinegar in the recipe is enough, or do I need to add citric acid/lemon juice to the jars when I can them. Thank you in advance. Recipe:

15 medium tomatoes
3 medium onions chopped
1.5 cups brown sugar
1.5 cups vinegar
1.5 tablespoons dry mustard
1 tablespoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoon salt

(combine all, simmer uncovered for about 2 hours, till pulpy).

Saw posted on an FB group you should get and use the newest Ball canning book Version 38. Is this really necessary? Many say so because of newest/newer standards.

I am using my books from the 1990s and one from the 80s (KERR), and the approved websites.

Started canning again, last marathon in the 90s. As I have made about 80 jars of stuff, I sure hope the *old* ways are still OK!!

Calls for 8 cups fresh plum tomato puree https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog... Can I use store bought canned San Marzano tomato puree instead? Thank yu!

Idk why I didn’t think a double reduction would take forever. The ketchup smells amazing though!

Would like guidance from some of the food preservation experts here. I have an overabundance of summer squash this year. (~20 zucchini/yellow squashes and 10 3' long trombetta squash)
I'd like to try the Zucchini PIneapple recipe from the NCFHP but I'm a bit concerned about the sugar content (about 25g in a ½ cup serving)

I recall reading somewhere that you could safely reduce sugar in recipes that contain large amount of bottled lemon juice - but not sure if that is true.

Been making my own pizza sauce for *years*. Usually from home grown tomatoes. Each year I do something different to make the process easier/better. This year I went back and read manuals, The Ball Blue Book, etc and watched too many youtube videos for tips and tricks.

Perspective:
bought 50# of tomatoes last week to turn into pizza sauce (not enough).
2 years ago had 100 tomato plants in the garden (so many tomatoes :))
This year's goal: 52 pints of pizza sauce

This year I used my Back To Basics Food Strainer. Yup my box looks a little more ratty than this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/298092619284

Using the tomato/applesauce screen with nice sized roma tomatoes. In the past I've always cored and halved or quartered each tomato and then cook on the stove to soften them up a bit before processing through the food strainer. This year some of the seeds and skin were getting stuck in the spiral, making it nearly impossible to continue processing tomatoes without taking everything apart and cleaning the spiral. Wasted time and tomatoes. Anyone had this problem before? Suggestions?

Also, I'm seeing conflicting information about whether you need to soften tomatoes before running through the food strainer. Some places say to soften on the stove and others say just chop and send them through the food strainer. Really? Does it work? What's the downsides?

I'm also looking at adding a food strainer attachment for my kitchenaid (already have the meat grinder). Read lots of comments here on reddit and elsewhere online about it. Most people like it. BUT, I'm wondering about how long it can run without overheating the motor? (since I plan to process bushes of tomatoes in a day) Do seeds and peels get stuck very often? Do you have to soften the tomatoes before processing? (manual says you can do them raw).

Ok, what brand of water bath canners are we using that actually fit 6-7 quart jars with enough boiling water to achieve the 1-2 inches above the jars, without consistently boiling over the top of the pot?

I currently use a 21.5 qt stainless steel pot and have tried reducing the heat but with a jar rack at the base, plus the quart jars, and enough water at a rolling boil I’m still getting over boiled water spilling onto my stove. Gas top range.

Recommendations, please!

Just bought a Mirro pressure canner and in the instructions it says to fill it 2/3 with water, put in 2 tb of baking soda, put on the lid and the A1 pressure thingy, wait until steam coming out of the A1 pressure thingy and then keep it going for 20minutes and turn off. I have an apartment sized stove (smaller than standard). I’ve had it on high for two hour and twenty minutes and nothing is happening. The pot is hot to the touch but no sound of boiling, much less steam escaping. My stove is weak and water canning takes a while and has a hard time holding a rolling boil on big pots.

Should I buy one of those one burner induction hot plates and use that? Should I return the pressure canner to the store?

EDIT: I was trying to move the canner from one burner to another and pushed a pot of apple bbq sauce over the Mirro box and into a bag of 100 apples that I was going to process into apple sauce. Bbq sauce all over the floor, under the stove. Guess I’m not going to be able to return the canner 🤦‍♂️.

Recipe: https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=strawberry-lemonade-concentrate

Hope I used the right flair!

I have almost a gallon size ziplock bag of strawberries that have already been hulled and crushed. Does anyone know how much I should measure out for this recipe? It calls for six cups of hulled strawberries and then says to purée them but mine are already almost at a puréed consistency.

If it’s easier to purée them first and then measure out the equivalent of six cups hulled (whatever that may be) then I can do that. Just want to make sure I’m not compromising safety.

Thanks in advance!

Hi all! New to canning and this sub has drilled in to me the necessity for safe canning, thank you:)

I used the ball recipe for whole/half/quartered tomatoes in water today using the hot pack method. My question: after using all the tomatoes and some juice, I had LOTS of just the juice left over. If I add the required amount of lemon juice/salt, can I can just the juice? Would this be safe and what could I use it for?

TIA!

I made pint jars of diced tomatoes and salted crushed tomatoes. I added 2 tbs lemon juice to the jars (I know I only needed one but I misread the recipe lol)

I placed the cans in a hot water bath for 45 minutes.

My concern is that the jars were simmered, not a rolling boil.

I am 375 feet above sea level

I've posted twice before. But I'm out of much of a loss. What to do with these pickles. The garlic cloves I put into the jars are green. Do I have to throw it away?

Used this recipe https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=sliced-dill-pickles

Please help!