Just purchased 3 cases of figs. Planning to make:
Fig and balsamic jam
Chipotle fig jam
Fig and lemon jam

Jyoti

Hi,

Fig jam, fig preserves and general information on figs. From reading the recipes, I estimated and the last document affirmed, "Figs have a low acid value, so you will need to acidify when canning."

If five pounds of figs need 1/4 cup 5% lemon juice, you may want to consider that ratio with whatever fig recipe you proceed with.

Regards,

I'm just about finished canning and crocking for the season.
Purchased a Model 921 All American pressure canner this season.
Put up 20l of Jalapeno/Habanero mash in one crock and 5l of Tabasco pepper mash in another. After aging will make pepper sauce and bottle.
I Pressure canned an additional 14 qts of pepper mash and 7 quarts of beets.
I have put up about 14 qts of tomatoes sauce, 7 qts of Jalapeno salsa and 21 qts of pickled jalapenos and Habaneros, 14 qts of banana peppers, each with an Habanero for heat as the banana peppers that were planted all turned out to be mild. My last task will be to get the remaining green tomatoes and make pickles out of them to use up the 13 qt jars I have left.
My farmer friend will most likely not plant next year due to age and the fact that a concerted burglary ring has been making the rounds of Kenosha and Racine county farm stands and not only stealing the money but the produce!-Dick

budrichard wrote:Put up 20l of Jalapeno/Habanero mash in one crock and 5l of Tabasco pepper mash in another. After aging will make pepper sauce and bottle.

will you be my friend? dang, I want to be on your Christmas list
can you perhaps point me to the recipe you use for bottled pepper sauce? I recently found an old 3 gal crock and was wanting to try that method

I am going to attempt RAB's Spicy Tomato Jam this weekend. Cathy, any canning tips?

razbry wrote:I am going to attempt RAB's Spicy Tomato Jam this weekend. Cathy, any canning tips?

Hi,

I read through the recipe. It has enough vinegar to acidulate several times over.

You can process by either:

- Sterilize freshly cleaned jars by boiling them for ten minutes, fill and process for 5 minutes, OR
- Pour jam into freshly cleaned jars and process for ten minutes.

If there were pectin in there, then only the first option.

I've been thinking of making tomato jam, too. This recipe for tomato marmalade has me intrigued, too.

I have a can on MaMade marmalade base. It's from England and available via Williams and Sonoma. The last time I looked, these cans sold for less than $10. You add sugar and boil until it jells.

I have a friend in the UK who used to visit on business from time to time. He was an avid food preserver and a Cordon Bleu graduate, probably the first one I ever met. I showed him a can of MaMade somewhat expecting some criticisms. It turns out, when they run out of their stock of homemade marmalades. They buy MaMade to make enough to tide them over. He liked it a lot.

Regards,

dk wrote:

budrichard wrote:Put up 20l of Jalapeno/Habanero mash in one crock and 5l of Tabasco pepper mash in another. After aging will make pepper sauce and bottle.

will you be my friend? dang, I want to be on your Christmas list
can you perhaps point me to the recipe you use for bottled pepper sauce? I recently found an old 3 gal crock and was wanting to try that method

I would be reluctant to try this in other than a Harsch or other similar crock with a water seal.
As to recipe, its very simple. I use a food processor to make the mash from the peppers, add canning salt to the mash and let age/ferment with whey added as a starter. Two months did it last year and then its a matter of tastes as to vinegar content and then bottle. I purchase woozy's, caps and fitments and had a label designed and printed the labels myself. Then you have to bottle which is time consuming by hand.
Aging gives a Tabasco pepper sauce like taste but even with Tabasco peppers it will not taste like Tabasco hot sauce because they age in wooden casks.
Good luck!-Dick

Saw a Presto Pressure Canner, I think this is it, at Wal-Mart earlier this week.

Should I purchase it?

It's 16 quarts? Holds 7 quarts, a dozen pints, etc. It was $70.

Whaterver you think about this brand would be great.

That's what I have and I've been very pleased with it. If you want to try mine out to see if you like it, just let me know. Price seems reasonable (don't remember what I paid--it was a year or two ago.) You can use it for both water bath and pressure canning, as well as pressure cooking.

Hi,

Presto makes two kinds of pressure canners suitable for your needs. My yellow one is a weighted gauge that jiggles when it reaches pressure. Jen's has a dial gauge, which has to be periodically evaluated to make sure it is accurate.

When I was a Master Food Preserver for the University of Illinois Extension, one of my tasks was evaluating lids. If a client's lid was tested against a master pressure system to be a pound shy, then we would advise them to adjust their target pressure from 11 to 12 pounds.

If you want to avoid the hassles of having a dial gauge annually evaluated, then buy a weighted-gauge. For Illinois, you will always need 10-pounds.

FYI - pressure canners are usually shorter than waterbath canners. To process in a water bath canner, you want two inches of water over the lid. You can easily waterbath pints in a pressure canner, quarts may not be so easy to pull off. Plus a rack keeps your jars from shifting, banging together and sometimes cracking.

Regards,

Not feeling much of that canning romance tonight. I had two jars of my Fig jam break and I can't, for the life of me, figure out what happened. What a waste of good figs. At this point, I'm blaming it on poor jar manufacturing - i guess this is what you get when there is somewhat of a canning jar monopoly (Ball).

On the other hand, I have six intact Kerr jars of Plum Chutney

Jyoti

jygach wrote:At this point, I'm blaming it on poor jar manufacturing - i guess this is what you get when there is somewhat of a canning jar monopoly (Ball).

Canning jars have thicker walls than regular single use jars. They are designed for at least six rounds of preservation.

You are new to canning. You may have mishandled those jars without realizing it. We'll talk about it the next time I see you.

I am glad you do have those four other jars. I am sure they are wonderful.

Regards,

boudreaulicious wrote:That's what I have and I've been very pleased with it. If you want to try mine out to see if you like it, just let me know. Price seems reasonable (don't remember what I paid--it was a year or two ago.) You can use it for both water bath and pressure canning, as well as pressure cooking.

Will pick it up tomorrow. Thanks for the feedback on this thread.

I still want to do some onions, hot sauce, perhaps tomatoes and ketchup. I went to a baby shower yesterday and since I purchased (online from the registry) I grabbed a jar of peaches & a jar of pickles to be consumed by the Mum once her bundle has arrived. She's been unable to keep practically anything down during this pregnancy.

Thanks for the book as well. It's next to my bed for reading and thinking now.

I canned RAB’s Spicy Tomato Jam this weekend. It turned out great! I ended up processing it for about 20 minutes. I'm not sure if "jam" is the proper word for the product, as it does not have pectin in it and does not "set up". It is, however, a spicy lovely condiment. I canned it in small jars for gift giving. Thanks RAB for the recipe, and Cathy for the canning advice.

Jygach, don't feel too bad about a couple of jars breaking. It happens to us all.

Was canning salsa (the Ball website has a recipe I liked) and lost a jar, myself. Annoying how they explode into your water bath.

Has anyone canned tapenade? I did a Google search and did not come up with much and would like to give this a try. Any info is appreciated.

TIA,

Jeff

Mhays wrote:Was canning salsa (the Ball website has a recipe I liked) and lost a jar, myself. Annoying how they explode into your water bath.

Hi,

There can be many reasons for a jar breaking, which I agree is not a very happy moment. I have heard the telltake crack noise when I put a jar into a canner, too. Fortunately, it has been a few years (crossing my fingers).

One issue is thermal shock. If a jar is hot packed, it can be introduced into a water bath or pressure canner with water heated to 180 degrees F. If it is cold packed, then introduced at a temperture of 140 degrees F. To go hotter or cooler than these water temperatures is setting up conditions for thermal shock.

Another opportunity for thermal shock: take the jar out a canner and lay it on a cold hard surface. I put a towel down as a buffer. (On canning days, I go through dish towels are a very fast pace.)

When I visited Ball last year, they favored prewarming jars before filling. Except for sterlizing jars for jam, I never saw any prewarming jars via my favorite source: National Home Preservation website. I have not personally prewarmed a jar, largely because once you take it out to fill the jar is cooling rapidly. Once you have filled it, added lids and rings, the jar is the same temperature as contents (cold or hot). If I saw a reason to do it, I would but it seems an unnecessary ritual.

How jars are handled can be a source. You can learn a thing or two of what not to do from my friend's experience.

Somedays you can do everything right and it still happens. It can simply be there was a crack not detected when you went to work. A quick cold-to-hot or hot-to-cold will cause a crack to pop. I carefully store my jars when they are done. I don't use them for drinking glasses or vases, I want to minimize handling and opportunities for cracking.

You know what peeves me? The people you gift with your jams. Instead of returning the jar, they toss it into the recycling bin. That is a senseless loss, too.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:You know what peeves me? The people you gift with your jams. Instead of returning the jar, they toss it into the recycling bin. That is a senseless loss, too.

I couldn't agree more. Returning the jars would guarantee getting more goodies.

jygach wrote:

Cathy2 wrote:


You know what peeves me? The people you gift with your jams. Instead of returning the jar, they toss it into the recycling bin. That is a senseless loss, too.

Regards,

I couldn't agree more. Returning the jars would guarantee getting more goodies.

Yes-- once someone fails to return a jar, they are off my list. Grr. The best ones return the jar full-- even if it is just with a couple of cookies.

Jen

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

Presto makes two kinds of pressure canners suitable for your needs. My yellow one is a weighted gauge that jiggles when it reaches pressure. Jen's has a dial gauge, which has to be periodically evaluated to make sure it is accurate.

When I was a Master Food Preserver for the University of Illinois Extension, one of my tasks was evaluating lids. If a client's lid was tested against a master pressure system to be a pound shy, then we would advise them to adjust their target pressure from 11 to 12 pounds.

If you want to avoid the hassles of having a dial gauge annually evaluated, then buy a weighted-gauge. For Illinois, you will always need 10-pounds.

FYI - pressure canners are usually shorter than waterbath canners.

Regards,

The one I spied at Wal-Mart was indeed "Jiggling, Baby" So I have a proper weighed gauge canner. Now, what to put up this weekend?

I'm thinking a tomato sauce or perhaps a tomato jammy item a la RAB & REB.

Given all of the choices I would rather put up something that may not be available after this weekend or the next.

Is a spring-style pressure canner yet another type? I ask, because I've just done a websearch on maintaining my pressure canner and can't find anything beyond basically keeping it clean - nothing about checking the pressure. (I love my pressure cooker/canner - per the LTH amazon link, it's this one.)

jvalentino wrote:Has anyone canned tapenade? I did a Google search and did not come up with much and would like to give this a try. Any info is appreciated.

TIA,

Usually things to be canned are seperated in to High acid (suitable for water bath canning) and low acid (suitable for pressure canning) but that does not mean that just because an item falls into one of those two classfications, it is either safe or suitable for canning. A tapenade has high salt and oil if I am remember correctly, the high salt would certainly aid in preservation but the oil if water bath canned would not kill the boutulism spores and in fact the lack of air would be the perfect environment that it needs to grow. so there is probably a reason you can't find a recipe.
BTW, I only can with an approved recipe from at least some governmental agency or Unversity that has the ability to insure the recipe is safe.-Dick

Jeff

Thanks for the reply Dick-my research has brought me to the same conclusion.

Jeff

It's kind of an irritating situation. Obviously food companies "can" can oil-based things. There must be a combination of heat, pressure, and temperature that make it safe. And those guidelines are available to the companies.

teatpuller wrote:It's kind of an irritating situation. Obviously food companies "can" can oil-based things. There must be a combination of heat, pressure, and temperature that make it safe. And those guidelines are available to the companies.

and preservatives!!

teatpuller wrote:It's kind of an irritating situation. Obviously food companies "can" can oil-based things. There must be a combination of heat, pressure, and temperature that make it safe. And those guidelines are available to the companies.

Companies do time-heat studies for every recipe, where they study how long it take for heat to penetrate to the core. Water transfers heat differently than oil, thus they are not substituted. Commercial entities also have available acidifiers and other chemical resources, plus a food scientist on staff or as a consultant.

Botulism thrives in these conditions:
- less than 2% oxygen
- moisture
- low acid (think pH of 4.6 and above)
If it is present in your food, you cannot detect it by smell, taste or color. We are unaware of it until we are quite ill.

Cooking has a lot of latitude on how it is executed and the mix of ingredients. You can easily fly by the seat of your pants.

Baking is chemistry, where the ingredients interact together for the final result. You substitute carefully, because it can change the outcome tremedously.

Food preservation is a mixture of biology, chemistry and physics. Using research based methods and recipes from land grant universities is the best way to stay on the safe side of the equation. If in doubt, freeze.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote: Using research based methods and recipes from land grant universities is the best way to stay on the safe side of the equation.

The last time anyone conducted a research study on home canning was probably 1936!

It's true - for instance, I noted in a recent search that there are no guidelines at all for canning fresh fennel, or for canning pickled radishes.

Interestingly, there's a whole page on soup that doesn't offer any recipe at all - just that you use the guidelines for the items you're canning and then add stock. I'm actually curious enough about this that I might try canning my own soup...

teatpuller wrote:

Cathy2 wrote: Using research based methods and recipes from land grant universities is the best way to stay on the safe side of the equation.

The last time anyone conducted a research study on home canning was probably 1936!

Hardly. University of Georgia is quite active and responsible for my favorite website: National Home Food Preservation website. University of Oregon specializes in recommendations for seafood and fish. I see various states will offer recommendations on fruits and vegetables specific to their area. Last week, I found a datasheet on figs from the University of California.

One area they have been promising to offer recommendations is a revised method for salsa. The plan is for a recipe where you can substitute up X weight/volume of chilies, onions, cilantro, ect. It would help people use their favorite recipe and have it fall within a safe zone. They recognize people have personal preference in salsas.

MHays - I have done soups. My suggestion is make it plain Jane without much seasoning. Some spices change flavors under prolonged (Pressure) canning. Further if you commit a large batch to something you don't like, it is unfortunate. If it is plain Jane, you can reuse it more ways.

For your pickled radish, you need to consider similarly dense root vegetables. I looked at carrots on my favorite website, that would be a good recipe and processing method to model.

For canning fennel (I will be interested in your experience with the finished product, if you do this), in a perfect world there might be a recommendation for celery as a close equivalent. I would then looked at beets, peppers and cubed potatoes for processing guidelines. They are in the range of 35 minutes for a pint and 40 minutes for a quart pressure canned (check again for yourself). I would use that.

I was really thinking about just canning plain stock, myself - beats losing room in the freezer to "soup cubes." I agree, plain is the best way to go, and I've found that to be true with most of my canning - the less fussy a recipe is, the happier I am with it (the exception is the salsa recipe I just found, which has a ton of stuff in it - but that's salsa for you)

I was thinking that I'd follow carrots, since my eventual plan is to can Do Chua for sandwich garnishes, since I've been happy with the flavor/texture (if not the shape) of the NCFHP carrot coins recipe. I don't really have plans for fennel, but had heard about someone doing it elsewhere.