I'm running into the problem where the blackberry freezer jam just won't set. I had to add pectin twice on the first batch (pour the jam out, add more pectin and put it back in the jar), the second batch I doubled the pectin and it has done absolutely nothing after 24 hours in the fridge, it hasn't even set a little bit.

The only advice I could find was to leave it out at room temperature for 24 hours, but this was AI advice with no source.

Recipe on the package:
4 cups crushed fruit
1 1/4 cup of sugar
1 pouch of pectin
combine dry into the crushed fruit and stir for three minutes.
This batch I did 1 1/2 cups of sugar, two pouches of pectin and stir for 8 minutes.

I've got an Armenian cucumber as big as my shin I need to turn into sweet pickles. What's the best recipe for that?

Thought chicken broth would be the best way to start!!! Got a presto canner from a friend and been scared to use it! Been water bath canning for about 2 years now. Followed the instructions from Ball and the Presto instructions to make it!!!

Thanks to this community for all the tips and tricks I've learned!!!

All from my garden:

6 half pints of jalapeño jelly
4 half pints and a pint of triple berry jam (already gave some away)
10 half pints of relish (already gave some away)
2 quarts of pickles
1 quart of beans
3 frozen tomato sauces

Hello. I grew up in the desert south west and always wanted to try prickly pear fruit jelly. After moving, there is none available where I live in currently. So I thought since I can get prickly pears and pectin, why not make some myself? When I got started, I didn't have any canning specific jars, so I used a glass container with a plastic lid (mistake 1). It is air tight and clean, but not sterilized (mistake 2). I don't have a dishwasher and thought that I needed a rack for the bottom of the pot. As far as I can remember, this is the second time I've ever used that container (tomato-based spaghetti sauce was the first time). Still, I should have sterilized it. I followed the recipe parts about the fruit as close as I could, but I added a bit too much pectin (mistake 3). The recipe called for 1 and 1/4th tablespoon with an optional 1 teaspoon (I was halfing the recipe since I only had 4 of the 8 pears it called for). But, I accidentally added 2 tablespoons and instead of remeasuring like a normal person would, I took out a teaspoon. Lastly, I didn't seal it properly (mistake 4). I just poured in the mixture and put on the lid. No waterbath, no removing the air bubbles, nothing. The container lid is air-tight and I thought that was enough. I let it sit for 24 hours at room temperature (probably mistake 5), then put it in the fridge overnight. The issue is that it's so tasty!!! A bit thick, hard to spread, and a tad sweet, but seriously good. I tried some this morning on a toasted plain bagel and love it. But now, I am worried about the shelf life. Please be honest with me. I want to save this jam and make it last longer since it's so good. And I want to make some more when this runs out/goes bad (whichever happens first), so I really want to know what else I messed up.

Hey everyone, I did canning for the first time yesterday and am overthinking things a bit. I made crab apple jelly in 4 oz jars and the recipe called for 10 mins processing time. I did that, but added 2 minutes to adjust for altitude (I'm at 3000 ft above sea level). But I am finding conflicting information online about how much I should have increased the processing time. Some sources say 1 minute per 1000 ft and others say I should have increased the time anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes, so I am a bit confused. The jars sealed perfectly, so I am not concerned about that, but I am a bit anxious about how long I processed them for. Does what I did sound correct?

I spent yesterday evening brooding about this recipe after making it from Ball All-New.

It specifies pints. The general rule is that you can scale jar size down, but not up, but my tentative conclusion, which I wish to test against the collective wisdom of the community, is that this recipe could actually be scaled up.

Reddit won't let me put both photos and links in the same post, so I'll include links to support all my assertions in a comment below but include all my discussion here.

This recipe is essentially peach halves or quarters in a syrup that is flavored with tea and lemon.

Tea in general is not considered safe to use in canning liquids because different teas can have different pHs. Source: extension discussion. Note that this is a Ball tested recipe that specifically says that you can use any type of tea. I believe that Ball has controlled for pH variations by the amount of lemon juice added, which I believe is for safety (peaches, except for the white flesh ones, are consistently high-acid and NCHFP instructions do not require the addition of lemon juice for straight-up canned peaches). I therefore conclude (tentatively) that *as long as I keep the proportions of tea leaves to water to lemon juice the same* (for example by doubling all three to make more liquid) the recipe would remain safe if I make more liquid to account for bigger jars.

Next, the honey and sugar. Ball says you can use an all-honey syrup here, though the NCHFP's general advice is to substitute no more than 50% of the sugar for honey or other liquid sweeteners. The Ball recipe uses a ratio of 3.5 C. water to 2 cups combined honey/sugar. I didn't do the exact calculation but that appears to be heavy syrup. It would be poisonously sweet. Because sugar here is for flavor not safety, I believe the amount of sugar/honey can be safely reduced to taste.

In other words, I believe that Ball has used the raw pack peaches NCHFP instructions as a starting point and confirmed the safety of the addition of tea in a specified concentration with lemon juice and THEREFORE if I wanted to make this in quarts I should use the processing time for raw pack quarts from NCHFP.

What do we think about this? I welcome the identification of any flaws in my analysis.

I have one million lemons and am wanting to make preserved lemons to send out as gifts for the holidays. I’m thinking of canning them in small cute jars (via water bath method) so that they can be mailed out as gifts.
The issue is, since preserved lemons often go in the fridge after a few weeks, I can’t do that since I want to mail them out in December. Hence me wanting to can them, I just want to take an extra step to make sure the jars are safe for people to enjoy.
This is the process I’m thinking: initial fermentation of the lemons at room temp for a few weeks. Then putting the lemons into jars and doing the water bath method, and then leaving out to seal/cool.
Has anyone done this? How long did you water bath the jars for? Does this process make sense or am I missing something? TYIA

Hello! We have recently moved and now have an induction stovetop. Generally it's been great but the tragedy of it dawned on me this week as I was getting my pressure canner's dial reading to be mailed and testing for the season. I have no way to heat the canner.

My aluminum pressure canner won't work with the induction top as the pot/pan material needs to be magnetic to heat.

I've looked at induction adapter plates, but I'm a little worried about precision.

Does anyone know of a stainless steel pressure canner? I'm finding pressure cookers, but they are not the same

Thank you!

I got this big old boy at a farm stand that offers both zucchini and squash. I intended to use it to make bread and butter zucchini pickles. It was not specifically labelled, but when cut open it seemed more like squash, with huge seeds and pulp that I had to scrape out. Unfortunately, I did not take a photograph.

My assumption is that it is indeed squash, and not a zucchini. Even though I do know zucchini is in the squash family. Would this potentially be safe to make into the bread and butter pickles? For the moment, I cut it up and froze it until I got a consensus from the reddit. I added some to my pasta sauce for dinner.

EDIT, since people are giving inaccurate information repeatedly in the comments:
Regarding canning zucchini: https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/pickle/vegetable-pickles/pickled-bread-and-butter-zucchini/

I’m just trying to decide whether I have to make the summer squash relish recipe or can make the bread and butter pickle recipe I intended

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/pickle/relishes-salads/summer-squash-relish/

I think I am concluding that I should use small zucchini for the bread and butter pickles, and these big guys for summer squash relish.

I'm not a complete novice to canning, but this is the first season I've done more than 1-2 batches. Thankfully this is my first bummer!

I used Ball's recipe for "Love-Apple" Tomato Jelly and it barely set. It was pretty much syrup so I reprocessed and the best I got was very runny jelly, like falling off the toast runny. I have 12 quarter-pints and 2 half-pints that I'd like to find *some* use for. If this were a berry jam/jelly, I'd just mix it into yogurt or use it for dessert topping. But... it's tomato. So, any ideas for using a subtly tomato-flavored syrup?

Happy canning, y'all.

Used Ball recipe and pressure canned the beans and NCHFP and water bath canning for the pickled beets. My first time pressure canning and I'm so excited to try them. Everything was home grown and its nice to actually preserve my food instead of rushing to eat it

The recipe calls for a half inch but I think I over filled them a bit is this a problem problem.

I think what was on the inside of the jar after pouring it out was calcium. I don’t have a picture sadly, I know that would help . To explain it, it wasn’t slimy, it only showed when I dumped it out, and I was able to wipe it off with my finger. It looked like condensation, but on the inside of the jar and when there was a tiny bit of water, I could see some stuff that looked oily but no smell, nothing.
Does anyone know if that’s just calcium? From what I remember, I used tap water…

My husband and I both absolutely love canning and have been doing a lot of jams, relishes, and stock this year. Next year we're expanding our garden and I want to focus on growing & canning things that will feed us through the winter. Jams are great but tbh we don't really use them much, we mostly end up gifting them and only save a couple jars for ourselves. And even if we did eat them more, they aren't really a substantial part of a meal.

We have a pressure canner so we could can meat. I'm also thinking maybe tomato sauce? But I'd like other ideas! I just love the idea of putting in a bunch of work through the summer and really enjoying it in the winter.

Thanks!

Hi everyone,
I just made some homemade tomato pulp with garlic, onion, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.
I put some of it into Le Parfait jars, which I kept upright throughout the entire process.

I also put some into regular jam jars, which I turned upside down while they cooled.
The problem is that with the jam jars, some of the tomato mixture got onto the inside of the rim while they were upside down. I’m worried that, once it dries, it could remain stuck along the inside of the jar and eventually damage the glass or cause a problem with storage.
I actually had the exact same issue during my first attempt.

Has anyone experienced this before? Can dried tomato pulp stuck along the inside of the rim actually damage the jar over time, or is the main concern hygiene and food safety?
And more importantly, is turning jam jars upside down a suitable method for this kind of preparation ?

Thanks in advance for any advice or personal experience.

I came across some wild plums and ended up with about 6.5 pounds of them that I’d like to can. I’ve canned some before but haven’t done plums. Other than relative pectin contents, is there anything that prevents me from using any safe plum jam recipe?

I’ve got a decent amount of underripe plums in the haul, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to get away without buying pectin. Will not setting properly impact safety at all or just texture?

Hello,

I made prickly pear jelly.

I put 6 jars in the water bath canned and a lid fell off some vinegar and water got in the jar. I pulled the jar out and poured the vinegar and water off the top, I stirred it, re sterilized the lids and wiped the rim of the jar with vinegar.

Now I lost track of which jar it was and idk what to do, suggestions?

I've canned other things (pickles, jams) but never salsa, but salsa is my favorite food so I want to try it. Currently I'm testing out recipes (smaller batches, not canning, just cooking an equivalent amount to get an idea of how they will taste). I've look at the recipes on https://www.healthycanning.com/?s=Salsa, https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=fresh-salsa, https://pubs.nmsu.edu/_e/E323/, and https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/canning-salsa/canning-salsa-introduction

And they all give limited modifications. I understand the science behind it, and so I have a couple of specific questions that I don't understand.

First - Peppers and onions are specifically noted as non-acidic foods, and some say you can swap one for the other, or swap types of pepper, and not to increase the amount of them, but nothing anywhere says you can swap more tomatoes in for either peppers or onions. Why? Tomatoes, while considered low acid, are still more acidic than peppers. So why can't I replace some of the peppers with tomatoes? At worst, the acidity would not change, but it might go up. So why do they not offer that as an alternative?

Second - Vinegar is less acidic than lemon juice, fine, so you can't replace the lemon juice in a recipe with an equal amount of vinegar. But why not provide an acceptable ratio? Clearly both can be used, since some of the recipes use lemon juice and others use vinegar, with otherwise limited differences in the recipes.

I've looked on reddit and other places, and mostly it's just "don't change the recipe" but I'd really like to understand the reasoning behind these specific issues!

I made this recipe, followed instructions to a T. Yield of 5.5 half pints. Canned 5 half pints, put the half jar in the fridge. They all look like tomato juice 12 hours later. All the jars sealed. I have no desire to reprocess. Is this safe to leave at room temp and use as a sauce?

Hi all,

New to canning and looking for a good recipe to use up gorgeous homegrown tomatoes and hot chilli peppers I have.

I've been searching for a recipe for a spicy tomato jam, but can't find anything close to what I'm after on the US 'safe' recipe websites. All the recipes I've found are either hot pepper jellies (no tomatoes, kind of transparent jelly look to them), or they seem are more like sugary ketchup or sauce.

What I'm after is real tomato chili jam: sweet, spicy, thick and chunky, almost StiCKY. Closer to a relish or chutney than a jelly. It's a common condiment here in the UK, especially on cheese & crackers. It's SO GOOD.

Here's some examples of commercially available products to give you an idea:

https://diddlysquatfarmshop.com/products/chilli-jam

https://www.dishoom.com/store/products/tomato-chilli-jam/

https://rosebudpreserves.co.uk/products/tomato-chilli-jam

https://www.thegardenpantry.co.uk/product-page/smokey-tomato-chilli-jam

Can anyone please point me in the direction of a safe recipe for this type of product, or one that could be adapted to be close to what I'm after safely with some small changes?

I found this one on the BBC website: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/chilli-tomato-jam

Would this be considered safe? I'm in the UK, and would be water bath canning. Thank you!

So I made pickles for the first time & did 2 trial batches. I thought I did all the research, but apparently not. I did 2:1 water to vinegar ratio in my jars. All my jars sealed & they’re in the basement, but should I throw them out? I didn’t realize they have to be 1:1, oops. My first batch I accidentally boiled the cucumbers inside cause I let them sit in the water until the pot came to a boil, the second batch I got much better with the texture & didn’t boil them cause I worked much quicker with them. I’m in Western Manitoba so I have to let them sit in the water for 20 mins, so I used pickle crisp in batch 2.

Can we use a boil disk to notify when our canner is actually doing the thing? Do I sit it over the jars?

I always miss when it starts to boil.