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I dulled my knife on 10 kg of tomatoes...
Sep. 4th, 2019 12:34 am...and after a bit of canning we now have 3 gallons of diced tomatoes put up for the winter, across 12 quart jars. It's definitely not going to keep us until spring, but I really want to reduce the amount of tomatoes we eat from resin-lined cans (which have BPA or BPA-substitutes in the lining).
These tomatoes are all from the CSA, and I'm curious to try them out. Many of the jars were made with "seconds" tomatoes that needed a couple spots trimmed off but were at peak ripeness. Others had somewhat less ripe fruits. One is made entirely from plum tomatoes!
I also really hope the seals hold. I have very little experience with canning, and made various mistakes, but hopefully not serious ones. (Biggest problem is that I put the citric acid in near the top of the jars, rather than the bottom, so some may have gotten pushed out. On the other hand, all of these tomatoes are destined to be heavily re-boiled to make spaghetti sauce or similar, which should destroy any botulinum toxin that manages to occur...)
I think I feel confident I could put away another few gallons. I'd want to change some things, though. In this batch, I did two rounds of raw-pack, which meant with the second round I was in the awkward situation of having a pot of recently-boiling water and a collection of room-temperature glass jars; I had to do some annoying work to get the jars heated to boiling in stages by juggling hot and cold water. I think next time I'll do a hot pack to avoid that problem, which will also have the bonus of reducing the water content of the tomatoes. (Again, they're destined for spaghetti sauce and similar.) And I'll remember to put the citric acid in the bottom, too. :-P
Incidentally, if you know of anyone around here making canned local tomatoes in *glass* who can provide them for $4/lb (is that reasonable?) I'd very much like to know. I'm willing to do the work, but it's also a problem I'm happy to throw money at.
These tomatoes are all from the CSA, and I'm curious to try them out. Many of the jars were made with "seconds" tomatoes that needed a couple spots trimmed off but were at peak ripeness. Others had somewhat less ripe fruits. One is made entirely from plum tomatoes!
I also really hope the seals hold. I have very little experience with canning, and made various mistakes, but hopefully not serious ones. (Biggest problem is that I put the citric acid in near the top of the jars, rather than the bottom, so some may have gotten pushed out. On the other hand, all of these tomatoes are destined to be heavily re-boiled to make spaghetti sauce or similar, which should destroy any botulinum toxin that manages to occur...)
I think I feel confident I could put away another few gallons. I'd want to change some things, though. In this batch, I did two rounds of raw-pack, which meant with the second round I was in the awkward situation of having a pot of recently-boiling water and a collection of room-temperature glass jars; I had to do some annoying work to get the jars heated to boiling in stages by juggling hot and cold water. I think next time I'll do a hot pack to avoid that problem, which will also have the bonus of reducing the water content of the tomatoes. (Again, they're destined for spaghetti sauce and similar.) And I'll remember to put the citric acid in the bottom, too. :-P
Incidentally, if you know of anyone around here making canned local tomatoes in *glass* who can provide them for $4/lb (is that reasonable?) I'd very much like to know. I'm willing to do the work, but it's also a problem I'm happy to throw money at.
