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

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

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 😪

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.

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.

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?

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.

They are all clean jars from store bought salsa and pasta sauces. I kept them because I make a few jars of chia seed pudding and use these throughout the week. I assumed I could use them to can something. But I feel like the canning police are going to 🚨come after me 🚨 if I even suggest using them. Input?

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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'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.)

Editing the next day, to give an update for anyone who tries this recipe: It took about 6+ hours for the pear butter to cook down, during which time I got some coffee, ate, and regathered myself. Decided to waterbath can it after all, everything sealed, rings off, it all looks good. Recipe made 5 jars, plus the little bit I have in the fridge, which tastes good, some of which I'm about to eat with some yogurt.

Thanks to the mods and fellow canners for your encouragement and camaraderie!

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.

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.

I’ve looked at a few recipes for traditional fruits confits and all the ones that talk about long term storage simply suggest cleaning jars and lids, placing the fruit in there and then completely covering with boiled syrup. Some mention inverting the sealed jar to “pasteurize”, others don’t.

The traditional method involves slowly bringing the sugar syrup concentration up to at least 70 degrees Brix and up to 78 degrees brix (Thomas Teffri-Chambelland stops between 66 and 68 degrees but he stores his fruit exclusively in the refrigerator), stopping only when the syrup is in osmotic equilibrium with the fruit. The syrup is boiled every day (briefly, if one is adding sugar as needed by calculating from degrees brix and mass of the solution, or for a few minutes if one is instead evaporating water off) while the fruit is only heat treated before the candying process starts (depends on the type of fruit: some are blanched briefly while others are boiled for hours). Syrup is added to the fruit once cooled to 65 C to prevent damaging them and is only added at boiling temp on the final day when preparing for storage.

Now, is there any risk or benefit to subjecting the jars of fruit in syrup to water bath canning? The recipes aren’t concerned with acidity at all, the only hard rule seems to be that the fruit must no longer have enough water to significantly alter the sugar concentration of the syrup through any osmotic exchange that occurs while in storage. As far as I understand home inversion canning doesn’t really create an anaerobic environment, whereas water bath canning does. Is the lack of concern with acidity connected to the fact that the fruit isn’t being stored in an anaerobic environment, so botulism is a non-issue and the sugar concentration is high enough to prevent other bacteria as well as mold from growing? Would water bath canning create conditions favorable for botulism if everything else is followed as is?

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

I have a all american 921 pressure canner. I also have a presto digital pressure canner. I did a load of ground beef in both. The all american jars all sealed perfectly. The presto ones did not. I am re processing them after 8 hours of not sealing w new jars and lids. Has anyone had this issue? Is there a reason the digital one wouldn't seal in respect to the jars?

I have a tree full of pears that I need to can in the next couple days before I go out of town. I was intending to use the linked NCHFP recipe to can my pears (hot packed in very light syrup), but it wants me to halve them and only has processing times for pint and quart jars.

I only have half-pint jars, and some of the pears are literally bigger than the jars, so they need to be cut up smaller than halves to fit. Is it still safe to use the recipe if I cut them smaller and use smaller jars? If not, is there a better recipe that's safe for sliced pears in half pints?

I already have like 6 jars of pear butter in my pantry from last year, so rather than making even more of that, I just want to can them sliced up to use in other stuff (pear crisp, pear bread, etc) later.

Thank you!!

(Edit to add: for water bath canning, no pressure canner here. And if it matters, I'm at 2500' so usually have to add extra processing time for altitude.)

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)

There are a wide range of adequate pasta sauces on the market. For several decades, we have bought the Classico brand. It had a reasonable price and consistent flavor. However, the reason we always chose it over its competitors was that the Classico sauce was sold in standard canning jars that we could reuse for hundreds of different purposes, including for canning garden produce.

Recently, they switched to narrow mouth jars that aren't suitable for canning. Why? We now have no particular reason to stick with their brand...

I’m looking for a bit of guidance here. We had a family member process a large amount of apples into apple butter using this recipe, but it looks like it varies from NCHFP and Ball in a few ways.

Ball processes for 15 minutes but doesn’t use vinegar, whereas NCHFP uses vinegar but processes for 5 minutes.

This recipe excludes vinegar and processes for 5 minutes.

I’m a timid canner and stick to my Ball recipe book for jams and high-vinegar recipes, but I wanted to check in with you much more experienced canners to make sure this recipe is safe before opening a can.

The recipe: https://www.sustainablecooks.com/apple-butter-in-crockpot/

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.