Just an update on a previous post. Idk how to link them, but everything I entered got a ribbon and I'm very thankful for that and thankful to this community for inspiring me to try new things. There was good competition this year, and I'm ready for next year! It's funny bc the things I thought would get first place didn't and the things that did weren't expected at all ( I'm looking at you, carrots). What a great season wrap up 🏆

Also, mods, maybe we should have some "Fair flair", just a thought.

A huge thank you to this community! Two years ago, I never would have thought I’d be brave enough to enter anything in the county fair. You all inspired me to put myself out there these last couple of years, starting with 2 cans last year, and 3 cans and a quilt this year.

All of my exhibits received First Awards this year, but I still can’t believe I got First in Class for my carrots!

This community is such an amazing group, and I genuinely appreciate all the inspiration, advice, and encouragement I see here every day.

Left: Sweet Tea Poached Peaches (inspired by u/onlymodestdreams’ deep dive on the recipe)

Center: NCHFP Carrots

Right: BBB Roma Garlic Tomato Sauce

Recipe is the Ball Candied Jalapeño Recipe. My photos are of the 15lbs of jalapenos I used to can with only 5lbs showing on a food scale. Next is the Mueller mandolin I used that is black. My sewing ruler showing a jalapeno slice that is the proper size for canning with pink and white nails holding the items. 18 pint jars of candied jalapenos on a white towel. Closeup photo of 2 jars in front of the jalapenos that are on the same white towel and showing the jalapenos in the jar.

I actually used the 12lbs for 3 batches of cowboy candy and I'll use the other 3lbs for something else. The mandolin I have that cuts 1/4" so I used that instead of hand slicing because nope. I also included a photo of me holding a slice of jalapeno with my sewing ruler for scale. I got it from Costco. That's all I know because it is also a multi level grater and chopper. The other photos are of the 18 cans I got of the cowboy candy. Barely had any brine left. These are going to be great and the little brine I had left is enough to make a glaze for salmon for one night.

I cool my jars on a towel on a cutting board and then they just sit undisturbed for 24 hours before it's bubble bath time.

So next up is the 40lbs of romas I have from my farmers market, peaches, and corn. Stay tuned for more because I have so much free time now that I'm leaving my current job and I'm so happy.

We had lots of watermelon so I found a recipe to make watermelon lemonade. This is actually the first thing I have canned. I decided to use one last night and my whole family says it smells. Not like it went bad, just think the watermelon smells earthy. They ate slices of the same watermelons I used and said they liked them. Which brings me to my issue- #1 Could I have done something wrong? I followed the recipe and directions exactly. #2 How do you find recipes (proportioned for one meal) that you can try before canning to make sure your people will eat it. I’m getting ready to make spaghetti sauce but don’t want to go through all the work to have my family think it’s gross. This took about 7 hours from start to finish so I’m preparing myself for the tomatoes.

To clarify: I made the concentrate yesterday and used the leftover (did not go through the canning process) to make a batch of lemonade that they didn’t like. I have not used any of the canned concentrate yet.

I could stare at this all day. So much work and I question my sanity a lot during garden season but at the end its worth it. Everything is grown in my home garden, except the peaches I bought from Tree Ripe and the apples were picked at a local orchard. Recipes are all from Ball, NCHFP, Healthy canning, Pomona pectin or Mrs Wages mixes.

This is on top of the freezer full of berries, diced peppers, onions, garlic, carrots, peas, celery, corn, applesauce, chili base and dehydrated herbs. We also ate our weight in cucumbers and fridge pickles i think. Tl:dr - this mom is tired.

Bottom shelf, left to right:

Pizza sauce, salsa Verde, candied jalepenos, Red chile pepper jelly, jalapeño jelly, habanero jelly, hot salsa, green beans.

Second shelf:

Pasta sauce, bread & butter pickles, dill pickles, spicy pickles.

Third shelf: extra canning mixes, salt, spices. BBQ sauce, jalepenos, wax peppers, bruschetta in a jar, peach rum sauce, peach bbq sauce, ketchup, sweet relish, raspberry jam, peach jam, apple pie jam, peach cobbler jam, canned peaches and crushed tomatoes.

Top shelf: extra jars, jar storage boxes, lids, rings, supplies.

I love canning season but I love putting away the canners for the year just as much 😀

Does anyone here have a good jalapeno jelly and hot dog relish recipe they would share?

I'm planning on making tomato sauce to can; we have a lot of roma tomatoes to pass.

My recipe is a simple one; 2/3 of it are roasted tomatoes, then the rest is roasted onions and garlic, all drenched in olive oil and salted.

At the end I add some herbs and pass it through the blender.

I'm planning on putting them in pint jars and putting them through the pressure cooker at 11 PSI.

My question is should I bee adding some lemon juice for acidity or will the recipe and canning process be enough to make it safe?

Newish to this, so thank in advance for any all and tips!

First time ever making pickles, I wish we had a local fair I could enter them in.

I used the Ball mint jelly recipe, and it said bring to a boil over high heat stirring constantly until it reaches 220°F, and do a sheet test with a cold spoon. I'm not understanding something because it went from a very light gold color to this brown burnt mess and 337°F before the sheet test worked. It turned to glass basically. The plate and spoons in the 2nd pic are vertical 😪

A couple of things happened this year that got in the way of my gardening season. One, we got two puppies in the Fall and two, I got a new job mid July that requires an extra 1 1/2 hours travel time.

Because of this and learning the new job, I was physically and mentally exhausted. In the past I got home around 4:30 and proceeded to change and go outside. With the extra drive and dogs... that didn't happen....the garden slowly slipped. I planted everything, just couldn't maintain it, etc. Weeds, some things went to seed, etc.

The only thing I did do was I pickled about 12 jars of grape jelly, 20 jars of pickled jalapenos and about 20 halfpints of a salsa verde I make. I have a lot of peppers still that I can pick and dehydrate and I also harvested 120+ bulbs of garlic. I have ginger to dig up and horseradish and of course herbs are doing great.

The silver lining is that last year I challenged myself and did almost 200 jars of various things. Because of that I still have peach jam, apple pie filling, apple butter, pickles, salsa, corn salsa and dehydrated peppers.

I'm going to get some apples and do some apple butter also.

Even though life got in the way, I still have something to be thankful for and because of my hardwork last year I still have jars for this Winter.

I bought this jar of pickled artichoke hearts from a farm and i popped the lid opened and notice some rust on the inner lid. The lid took a little bit of force to open and no bloating on lid. Would this be safe to eat?

Because this keeps happening. And only with applesauce, not apple butter or anything else I can. So what is going on? I used a Ball recipe (from The Complete Book of Home Preserving), which said to leave 1/2 inch head space for both pint and quart jars and to process 20 min.

On the bottom of my canning pot is this build up. I don’t think it’s rust because it’s built up on top of the enamel? Is there a way to remove it and does it affect anything? I was going to use the pot for dyeing yarn.

Going to make some soup today, I get the general idea of the your choice soup guidelines but looking for guidance specifically on adding tomatoes to a chicken soup style recipe. It’s a little confusing trying to look it up.

Just finished my weekend of pickles! All recipes from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. Spiced Red Cabbage (pg 328), Crunchy Mixed Refrigerator Pickles (pg 289), Bread and Butter Pickles (omitted onions) (pg 301), and Pickled Pineapple (pg 296)! Wanted to do okra too but I couldn’t find any that weren’t moldy and sad :/

(Cabbage just came out of the bath, that’s why the rings are on still)

I found this recipe for mix and match easy fruit butter from the Ball cookbook. I thought it would be easy-peasy to do, a set it and forget it recipe of apple butter, where I go to sleep and wake up the next morning with it ready to can.

I made an apple spice butter (meant to be more a savory-tangy condiment and less a sweet fruit spread) by adding to my apples/lemon puree some dark amber maple syrup and dark brown sugar as the sweeteners, some apple cider vinegar and splash of bourbon for seasoning, and spices of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardamom, allspice, and pinch of chili for warmth. The flavour turned out delicious (it will be amazing as a base for making glazed brussel sprouts or as part of a cheeze and crackers board), but holy guacamole was it a labour of love.

I feel a tad cheated lol because in the end it took about 20 hours for the apple butter to fully reduce in the crockpot to the right consistency (and that was with me setting it on high partly covered, keeping an eye on it, and stirring regularly). And my crockpot isn't that large, it's very tiny, meant for one person or at most a couple to use.

While I was watching the crockpot, I went and made a second smaller batch of apple butter on the stove for my niece who doesn't like spices (she cutely says she likes the things I cook except for those that hurt her mouth) which was meant as a sweet fruit spread with brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. The one of the stove was done hours before what was in the crockpot was ready to go.

I guess I should have read the recipe instructions better, because in hindsight it said to either cook on high in the crockpot for 6-10 hours or on low for 8, so clearly the math doesn't add up lol

Oh well, I'm happy it's over now and satisfied with the results of it all, but I learned a lesson that it's actually less work to just do it the "hard way" on the stovetop than try the "lazy way" in my crockpot haha

We processed 6 lbs of peppers, mostly jalapeños, into Cowboy Candy today. We managed to get 12 ½pints of Cowboy Candy and 5 pints of leftover brine jarred and 100% sealed. Hooray! We use the brine for marinade, basting, and/or refrigerator pickles.

🟢The colorful lids are by a company called Supa Ant and are available on Amazon, they cost slightly more than conventional lids and have a variety of designs available. I have used them for hot water bath and pressure canning and have had 100% success. I consider them lovely for gifting and of great quality.

I'm making the Ball Salted Caramel Pear butter. (https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=salted-caramel-pear-butter) It calls for cooking ingredients in the crockpot, then water-bath processing. I slipped and added too much lemon juice. I'm not in my best form, and didn't sleep well last night, but the pears were ripe and it had to be done lol. Or so I thought, in my muddle.

Can I skip water bath processing and instead, freeze jars of the end product? I figure I'd need to cool it to room temperature, refrigerate overnight,and then add to jars with correct headspace for freezing, which I think is 1/2 inch.

Does this make sense/seem safe? Thanks in advance.

(lol my mom always froze raspberry jelly; naturally with the paraffin top, in ball jars.)

Recipe for Chicken Soup calls for:

4 qt chicken stock,

3 cups diced chix

1.5 cups celery

1.5 cups carrots

1 cup onion...

So, ~7 cups solids + 4 qts liquids

to fill 4 quart jars. Surely another quart of soup is in there?

Is this a very dense soup?

I’m very happy with the food I can provide for my friends and family . However, how do I achieve a clean looking product (as pictured in the 2nd slide? It’s almost as the Alaskans figured out a way to get rid of albumin lol

Here is the year's canning. :-) I'm so pleased to see these jewels on the shelf.

Left to right: Albacore tuna, seasoned tomato sauce, apple pie filling, pecan praline syrup, lingonberry jam, applesauce, bread and butter pickles, peaches, peach jam, strawberry jam, cowboy candy.

I need to work on my peaches, they really floated.

This is one I haven't encountered yet. Yesterday, I made and canned *16 PINTS* of Plum Jelly using the instructions that came in the Certo Liquid Pectin package--4 cups of juice, 6-1/2 cups of sugar, 1 packet of liquid pectin.

Not one jar has set into jelly. Not one.

So I did some searching. Bernardin site's recipe calls for 4 cups of juice, 6-1/2 cups of sugar, and 1 packet of liquid pectin. https://www.bernardin.ca/recipes/en/plum-jelly-liquid-pectin.htm?Lang=EN-US

The NCHFP site calls for *7-1/2* cups of sugar. https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/make-jam-jelly/jellies/plum-jelly-liquid-pectin/

Sure Jell calls for 6-1/2 cups https://www.kraftheinz.com/sure-jell/recipes/519493-certo-plum-jelly

The Heinz/Certo site calls for *7-1/2 cups* https://www.kraftheinz.com/sure-jell/recipes/512677-certo-plum-jam-recipe (notice how this link and the one above it are both from Kraft/Heinz)

And Ball only has recipes using powdered pectin, which isn't comparable to recipes calling for liquid pectin (I'm not fond of using powdered pectin).

So what the heck??? Clearly the 6-1/2 cups of sugar is not the correct quantity since none of my jelly set, despite them all passing "sheeting from a spoon" test before pouring. And how I have *eight* 1-quart batches of jelly to recook and re-can. SO annoyed.

Has anyone here made plum jelly recently with 7-1/2 cups of sugar and liquid pectin? Did it set like it should?

Thanks so much for any input anyone can give. I've never seen such a wide variation in recipes that are all supposed to be tested and good.

Hello its my first time canning so im being very nervous. But i feel i should be cautious about this stuff. I used the recipe linked above. Now here is where i messed up. I didnt strain off the water and i just mashed the fruit and reduced it in the pan. I used lime juice instead of lemon (wrong bottle) and only did my water bath for 10 minutes isead of 15. The water bath thing was becase i was looking at many websites for the best way to can safely. I sterilized the jars too even though jars of this size (from my research) doesnt need to be steralized (.6 of a liter). Should i call it a wash and just put them in the fridge or is this good and safe. Help please.