First batch of the season from the garden ( 25 Pints).

Ball has a bunch of fruit jelly from a wide variety of berries and stone fruits and I have been experimenting with a number of these this year. I have many many plums and anticipate twice as many next year, so it's a bit of a problem, particularly alongside the mountain of elderberries I'm also picking. Jelly resulting in a smaller yield per pound of fruit was initially a draw until I saw how much pulp I was throwing away.

Stone fruits don't juice particularly well. I tried doing a couple of slightly squishy peaches as an experiment and got a couple of tablespoons out of them. 6 cups of plums rendering down to 2.75 cups of juice is barely half a batch of plum jelly. I'm seeing why most plum recipes use diced fruit instead of a jelly bag. Also the 3 lbs of blackberries I picked has only turned into about 1.5 cups of juice, around half a cup of pulp and more than a cup of seeds.

So what I've been doing instead is running the fruit through a chinoise to get the skins off, then running the pulp through tea strainers in the fridge overnight, so I don't have my juice sitting out at room temperature for 10 hours. The pulp from that step is a rather smooth consistency, and is making a pretty excellent fruit leather, particularly if you mix several fruits together. I made blueberry plum, and the next batch will be blackberry plum.

This is doubling my yield from a batch of fruit and halving the amount of stuff I'm putting into compost. For a lot less than twice the labor. Compared to some combinations I've seen for processing apples that result in three times as much work for about 2x the yield.

If i chose the wrong flair, i apologize and will happily correct it if need be. I've never posted n this sub before, only commented on others' posts, so I hope I'm doing this right.

I am fascinated by the Night Owls Jam recipe on the Bermioli Luigi site.

https://bormioliluigi.com/glassware/en/magazine/article/344/night-owls-jam

I'm also interested in the vanilla banana jam recipe they have.

https://bormioliluigi.com/glassware/en/magazine/article/62/banana-and-vanilla-jam

Now, I know rhat bananas aren't acidic enough, so I'm not going to try to make a shelf stable version of that. I also know that their method of loading jars up, putting the lids on, and turning them upside down is not the way to do canning, so I definitely won't be trying that either.

My question is this: can I do these as refrigerator or freezer jams? It seems like I could but what do i know about fridge and freezer jams since I've never made one, right? I figured I'd ask people who know a lot more than I do.

I'd like to try these flavors of jam, but only in a safe way.

Thank you in advance for any help you can give me, even if the answer is "don't even think about it" (and if that's the answer, I will just have to remain curious because I don't want to die from a weird and unsafe jam recipe).

We made the roasted salsa verde recipe from page 167 of the all new ball book of canning. The jars all leaked a bit and expanded up to the lid, now they seem to be full of air bubbles and have slightly separated with small white bubbles between the layers. Going back to check the recipe, it seems we accidentally poured it straight from the food processor into the jars without simmering first. Could we crack these open, simmer it, then freeze since we’re off track from the proper recipe or is there already a contamination risk?

I hot packed tomato quarters in water. Pint jars used, Ball recipe. Used my pressure canner as a water bath canner and a jar turned on its side. Should I treat this jar any different?

I'm a city dweller. I got about 15lbs of tomatoes from my patch in the community garden, along with a few lbs of jalapenos and tons of sage and basil. I've done a little canning, and have a pressure canner. Should I make sauce? Crushed tomatoes? Try to eat them all? About 1/2 the tomatoes are cherry tomatoes, is it worth going through the process for those? Good recipes for my first garden harvest? Also, is it worth canning things if you don't have a garden? If you're buying the produce and ingredients? Is chili worth canning? Or do people tend just to can individual ingredients? Sorry for the question overload.

Hi all, does anyone have a way to keep cucumbers "gresh" until there is enough to can? I only have one plant, and try to pick them before they get big and bitter, but usually the first ones are getting soft before I have enough. I'm only making 2-4 pints at a time, once a week. I wish I had time to make a jar at a time as needed, but alas, I have to go to work.

Edit: thanks for all the tips!

Romas from the plant to the Ping in 18 hours

I generally find NYT Cooking to be a great resource for recipes in a general cooking/baking sense, but have never tried any of their canning recipes. Should they be considered safe??? I am copy/pasting below the text from a recipe in this link for Stonefruit Jam. My main concern is the stone fruit in question does not call for peeling, and I thought you had to peel them to water bath can? If anything seems like a nice fridge/freezer jam but would like to can it, if this seems safe

Here is a stone fruit jam recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018846-stone-fruit-jam?campaign_id=58&emc=edit_ck_20260903&instance_id=181319&nl=cooking&regi_id=98769010&segment_id=225965&user_id=60d659eaf8a6baac010a8aac3c529fbb

Ingredients

Yield: About 4 cups (4 8-ounce jars)

• 4 ½ pounds/2 kilograms peaches, nectarines, plums or apricots, pitted, sliced or cut into 1-inch chunks
• 2 ¾ cups/550 grams granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon or lime juice (from about 2 lemons or limes)
• Add-ins (optional, see note)

Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

1. Step 1 Toss fruit and sugar together in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Let sit for at least 15 minutes or up to overnight, tossing periodically to coat and to dissolve the sugar. (This will help coax the juices out of the fruit.)
2. Step 2 Place a small plate in the refrigerator to chill. (You’ll use this later.)
3. Step 3 Bring the fruit to a strong simmer over medium heat until the skins burst and the juices start to boil, 10 to 15 minutes. If using a vanilla bean as an add-in, put it in the pot now.
4. Step 4 Increase the heat to medium–high. Cook the jam, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon or spatula at first and more frequently as juices thicken until most of the liquid has evaporated and the fruit has begun to break down, about 25 to 35 minutes. How much it breaks down will depend on the type of fruit and how ripe it is. (For example, peaches are likely to retain their shape, while plums and apricots will break down almost entirely.)
5. Step 5 As the jam cooks, the liquid reduces, the sugars thicken and the natural pectins activate. You’ll notice the liquid go from a rapid, rolling boil with smaller bubbles to a slow, thick, tarlike boil with larger bubbles. This is the stage at which it’s most important to stir constantly along the bottom of the pot to prevent scorching and sticking. (Sugar is heavier than water and will concentrate there, increasing the chance that the fruit will burn.) It’s also the stage at which splattering may occur, so take care in stirring.
6. Step 6 When the jam reaches a slow, thick boil, add lemon juice and any of the add-ins (see note). Continue to cook, stirring constantly until the jam has returned to its previously thickened state, about another 5 minutes. To test the consistency, spoon a bit of jam onto the chilled plate, return it to the refrigerator and chill for 2 minutes. Drag your finger through it: It should hold its shape on either side without appearing watery or runny. If it’s not there yet, cook it a few minutes more.
7. Step 7 Remove from heat, and pick out vanilla bean, if you added it earlier. Divide between jars, leaving ¼ inch of space at the top of the jar, and seal immediately. Can the jams (see our How to Make Jam guide for more instruction), or store in the refrigerator, using them up within a couple of weeks.

Tip

• To elevate your jam, consider the following add-ins: For peaches or nectarines, add in 1 vanilla bean, split with seeds scraped; ½ teaspoon ground cardamom; or 2 tablespoons freshly grated ginger. For plums, add 1 teaspoon rose water or 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper. For apricot, add ¾ teaspoon almond extract or 1 vanilla bean, split with seeds scraped.

Here's their general page on canning jams - https://cooking.nytimes.com/article/jam - it seems like they use a lot of "general rules of thumb" rather than specifics tied to each recipe which makes me worry

I cut into last year's butternuts (from our cold room) and the seeds are brown. The flesh looks good but it's softer than I would have expected (not mushy, just not as hard as I thought it'd be). The seed fibres are dried out some and kind of shrunken. Smells fine, tastes fine. Has some fibres that look white (doesn't look like mold to me, so maybe that's normal as it ages?) The outer skin is good.

I wanted to can the squash and I'm wondering what people's thoughts are. Thanks.

Apologies if this is a dumb question. I made my second batch of green beans yesterday and, while trying to remove the rack between the layers of jars, accidentally knocked one over. I managed to pick it up within 30 seconds and placed it on the counter with the others. The liquid level matches that in the other jars and it sealed properly. Should I still keep it in the fridge and eat it soon? Every resource I’ve found online is referencing jars that fall over during processing so I wanted to be sure. TYIA ☺️

Hi all! This is my first time in the canning community, because I have never canned before but I want to start. So I am asking if you guys could point me in the direction of absolute beginner books. Like books that will explain it to me like I am 5. Preferably if the book also comes recommended equipment and how to use it, as well as recipes. I've looked at a ton of books it feels like and I'm not sure which ones would be useful for someone at my level, or lack of.

Hope this post is okay and thank you in advance for any help.

Picked a bunch of raspberries and had some frozen cranberries that needed to be used up, so found a water bath preserves canning recipe in Bernardin canning book.

I've been wanting to try recipes in the Bernardin book since I found it at The Attic bookstore in London, Ontario, when we did a roadtrip to Canada this summer.

They are cooling right now so haven't done a taste test yet, but they look good! Recipe in photos.

Did my first batch of salsa this weekend using the NCHFP recipe, followed it to the letter. Processed for the full time, jars sealed fine. But when they cooled, the solids floated up and there's a layer of liquid at the bottom. It doesn't look like the photos I've seen online where everything's evenly distributed. I've read this is called 'fruit float' in jams but does it matter for salsa? The seal is good, no leakage, but I'm worried I messed up the headspace or somethin. Should i reprocess or is this just cosmetic? Don't want to give my family botulism for taco night.

Hello all! My twin toddler boys start daycare, and then I have one more month before I go back to work. In that time, I want to prep as much food as possible because both of my husband and I will be working full time, and we are very much people who eat at home and don’t eat out a lot. We love cooking, we love food, and I do have a pressure canner!

Typically, I’ve used the pressure canner for a lot of stock and some soups, and the occasional green bean pressure can. But I’d really like to expand on this and this seems like a perfect opportunity.

While it’s not required for the food to be toddler friendly, and my boys eat pretty much everything anyway, anything that would work in that direction is greatly appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance!

I water bath these yesterday. I'm only noticing it now but it almost looks like mold!?

I followed the recipe from the ball complete book. My jars were raw packed then covered in water and I left one inch of head space before going in the pressure canner. I suspect I had water siphoning occur because I didn’t let them cool enough before removing from the canner. My jars are still about 3/4 full with water.

I'm looking for a site where I can purchase a water-bath canner that will cover my ball quart jars with 2 inches of water so that I don't have to monitor my longer processing items as closely or top off as often. Could I use any pot that I already have, or is there something special about pots that are sold specifically for canning? Is there a brand that is more highly recommend?

I've read conflicting things about steam canners, so for now I don't plan to look into those.

Unrelated, but I live in a tornado prone area and I like the idea of canning water in jars that would otherwise sit empty on my shelves. The water from my tap is technically drinkable, but very hard and reeks of chlorine, so we filter any water that we drink from the tap. If I was to can water would I need to filter it, or would processing help with the chlorine issue? Would there be sediment from the minerals in the hard water? I don't get sediment/deposits if I don't hear the water, but I get both if the water is boiled. I add a dash of vinegar to my water baths to prevent this and it works great.

Sorry for two unrelated questions that would be different flair, I didn't want to flood the feed.

I’ve been looking at the safe resources and recently came into several pounds of jalapeños. The recipes I see seem awfully light on heat (2 jalapeños to 7 cups of tomato?) Does anyone have a good pretty-darn-hot recipe from a safe source they love?

She believes what she and her mom did in 1980 Europe did not kill anyone, so all these new guidelines are completely unnecessary and complicated and recommended and followed by stupid American Reddit keyboard warriors.

She cans in the oven, re uses grocery store jars, doesn’t think about if something is acidic or neutral.

I’m trying to convince her but she has a point I can’t refute: no one has gotten sick, no jars have spoiled. 50-100 people die per year from botulism worldwide, that seems pretty low and less risky than almost anything humans do?

I am getting her some canning books from the library next.

Any thoughts and ideas are welcome that might help her see the light. (I will show her this post).

Can someone help me out with the amount of beans in home canned beans vs store bought? I always make a large batch of hummus with 3 cans of store bought garbanzo beans, or 1 1/2 cups dry. I’m trying to figure out if I should can in quarts or pints and how much would be in each jar to equal what I need for my recipe. Thank you for your help!

I've done plenty of water-bath canning (mostly pickles and spreadables) (yummy apple butter& jams lol)

I want to prepare and preserve my garden, save my leftovers etc, but im scared to buy low quality pressure canners. I'm disabled so limited income, and canning has saved me a lot of money in the months where I can't get out of bed or I'm too sick.

I can however, afford a one time purchase pressure canner. This will make preserving sauces that are low acid like chicken noodle soups etc, so much easier than just dumping the soup out when it goes bad in the refrigerator.

*I'm not going to listen to those who argue water bath canning is safe just do* I have enough health problems that I can barely manage, I don't need to add to the anxiety I already have of getting sick*

If there are any supportive suggestions, I will greatly appreciate them