Posted on 08/19/2011 5:01:37 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Invert the sealed jars several times to mix the lemon juice in and sounds like all will be fine.
Interesting. There are tomatoes that have higher acid contents. I’ll look in my mater books later on.
You put a salad plate in the freezer for awhile to get cold then plop a little of your hot jam or sauce on it and put it back in for about a min. it will jell up. If it turns out to be the constancy you are looking for you are done cooking if it is to runny you cook for a while longer.
When do you do this test? It must be before the jam is put in the jars?
Is there danger of cracking the plate?
Yes before you do the canning. I don’t think you would crack the plate you just use a small amount. I thought the same when I made a small amount of fig jam - but I used a corning wear plate.
I have heard that about the heirloom tomatoes also. That the heirlooms naturally had higher acid content than the hybrids. This is why they recommend added lemon juice or longer canning time now-a-days.
Most of ours are heirloom.
Get this. So I spent all weekend canning tomato sauce. We add big hunks of green pepper to the batch and after 4 hours the peppers are soft. When we jarred, we added a 1/4 slice of a whole pepper to each jar and water canned.
I emailed Ball/Kerr Jars and here is what they said.
“We appreciate your home canning inquiry. Our company only recommends home canning recipes that have been tested under strict conditions to ensure safety. Jarden Home Brands does not have a tomato sauce recipe that contains green pepper and is processed in a boiling water canner. We regret we are unable to say the sauce you canned is safe.
Thank you for contacting us.
Sincerely,
Consumer Affairs
Jarden Home Brands
So do I need to throw it all out. Could I put them in the fridge or has the damage been done?
Refrigerating your sauce would certainly help ... I doubt that it is unsafe at this point. It is alright to boiling water bath tomato sauce, but if you start adding peppers, onions, etc., you should process it in a steam pressure canner. Did you add any lemon juice?
Sounds like that was written by their legal department and is the typical CYA response in todays plague of greedy lawyers and their clients. I do not know what is different today than it was in the not so distant past that we have this paranoia of food poisoning. I don’t remember one case of illness due to home canning in my family and I’m 78 and as I stated up-thread my wife used to can our tomatoes in the oven...
yes JDB, 2 tablespoons per quart jar.
How about if I pour all the jarred sauce into a pot, reboil and then simmer for awhile, then just freeze it all.
Since the jars were done Sunday and Monday would I be OK with that?
I don’t see any problem with that plan. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the sauce at this point, if each jar has a vacuum. Pressure canning would still work too.
Every time I think about that tomato sauce in the oven, my taste buds start acting up, imagining an oven-roasted roma with spices.
If the jars that you water-bath canned do not have shoulders on them, you could actually freeze the sauce in the jars and skip the reheating and putting in containers.
On acidity of tomatoes:
"They ain't what they used to be... ain't what they used to be... ain't what they used to be. The poor ol' toms just ain't what they used to be - many ol years ago."
I have been taught to look at the lids for a bulge and to smell the contents when you open the jar. Did your jars seal?
From researching on the net the Lemon pips (seeds) provide a source of natural pectin. I did not know that, and was wondering why the recipe called for leaving them in.
Or you could be part of the jet set and call your soft set jams or jelly - “English Style”.
sealed tight Tubebender.
JDB, you wrote “Pressure canning would still work too.”
If I buy a pressure canner tomorrow, can I just unscrew the tops and remove the lids, boil new lids and re-seal before placing in the pressure canner....or should I dump sauce out, sanitize the jars, then refill?
I would leave it in the current jars. You may have to take a small amount out, as you need 1-inch of headspace to pressure can. Yes, new lids, but you don’t have to boil them. Process the quarts for 20 minutes at 10 lbs. of pressure. Good luck!
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