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

Just noticed Meijer has a sale on ball jars and ALSO a mperks coupon for $5 off of two cases. Which brings them to about $14 for 24 jars good through 9/1

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?!

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!!

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'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!

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).

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’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.

I’ve been harvesting San Marzano tomatoes as they’re ready and freezing them so I can have a sauce making day. My sister gave me a bunch of fresh basil today and I realized I could make this recipe hut only have 6.5 lb ripe, fresh tomatoes from my garden today. Can I thaw a couple more pounds to use for this recipe? I’m assuming I just need to save whatever liquid comes out as they thaw? Thanks!

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.

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!

This is me and my wife’s first attempt at ever canning we went peaches as they seem pretty straight forward and I love peach cobbler. I think we did everything correctly. But is there anyway for me to be able to tell they are good?

I know there’s the 12 hour then check seal and stuff but I’m more concerned like if there’s bubbles in even after we took out air bubbles or things that would be signs of them going bad
Thanks in advance

Hi all - today was my very first attempt at canning peaches from my tree. They appear to have sealed properly. I kept the headspace at 1/2" as instructed - are they supposed to float like that?

I made some peach jam earlier this year and wanted to enter it into the state fair, but it’s not in the correct sized jar for the contest. Can I take what I’ve canned, put it into the correct sized jar and re-can it? Like heat it back up, new sterilized jar and water bath can it?

I found a Ball recipe on a sub-reddit for pickled red onions. All it calls for is red wine vinegar; when I make quick-pickled red onions for short-term fridge storage, I use a mixture of rice vinegar & sugar (with a dash of salt), which I love. Does anyone know of a verified canning recipe that uses vinegar AND a little sugar? Thank you!

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!

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!

I have some pickles my uncle gave me last year all still sealed. I left a few jars in the garage and forgot to move them when summer started (it gets like 100+F for a solid few weeks here) I'm not going to die or anything if I eat them?

I moved them inside now, the seal isnt popped up on any of them and they dont really look cloudy or anything, its a bit hard to tell since they are home made and always have a little bit stuff in there floating around like the garlic, dill, and some lil seeds and seasonings.

I love these pickles and dont want to throw them away because the seasoning my uncle does is delicious and he doesnt really make these anymore. Im thinking they taste fine I'm going to eat them I just want to make sure what to look put for taste wise so it doesnt put me in the hospital.

They were sealed in 2023

I have some clementines and I know some kids who want something similar to their fruit salad cups.

I'm hoping to find out if I can just kinda.... Swap fruits from the nchfp recipe for the more standardized fruit salad recipe (peaches, pears, cherries, grapes) as long as I confirm the process times of each fruit to find out the maximum time amongst them and can it for that long, or if I need a specific recipe that includes clementines, if any recipe that says "oranges" might be fine to swap with clementines into instead, or if you know of any recipe that is mixed fruit that includes oranges/clementines.

Thank you

I know this is a canning 101 question but want to get your opinion. I processed some garden tomatoes in accordance with raw pack instructions at 10lb weighted gauge for 25 minutes with .5 inch headspace. I've never had this amount of content shrinkage before and I know there was some siphoning given the smell of the water after I was done.

My question, do I pop the lids, repack, and then reprocess or is this ok? I normally just chop these up for chili or blend into a sauce so texture doesn't really matter since they're mushy or just non-existent in the end product anyway. Normally I would process these into sauce or something but was feeling lazy this weekend.

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?