Started my yearly task of making juice

[ContainerTed]

Today, I made my first batch of thick tomato juice like I do each year. Most years, I'll make 100 or so quarts of thick tomato juice that is simply tomatoes processed thru my Back to Basics food mill and some canning salt. It truly is like drinking a summertime heirloom tomato. It is the drive behind my mantra of only dealing with tomatoes that taste good.

Here's a quick look at what part of my day today was spent doing. From what I have in the jars, I can make salsa, sauce, or whatever trips my trigger, or I can just get it nice and cold and drink it straight up or with my favorite beer (makes what we call a "Redeye").

In January, when I open up a jar, it smells like summer. BTW, those eight jars are still too hot to handle (just out of the pressure canner).

[whistech]

Ted, how long do you pressure can it? Do you cook the sauce down to get it thick before pressure canning?

[ContainerTed]

Yes, I do cook it down, but I don't bring it to a rolling, bubbling boil. I get it hot enough to make the contents roll gently without bubbles. This ensures that I don't 'burn" it. It does take a while to reduce it this way, but the flavor is worth the extra time spent.

Most canning instructions suggest a Boiling Water Bath for canning purposes when it comes to Tomato Juice. But I like something a bit more, so I take the pressure to 15 PSI and leave it there for 5 minutes. Then I allow the whole thing to cool down until I can open the canner.

I know it's overkill, but it makes me feel better and the taste is not compromised. The juice I make is only tomatoes and some canning salt.

It really is like drinking a Brandywine.

[Worth1]

Looks nice Ted.
My jars come out white even when I put a bit of vinegar in the water.
Worth

[ContainerTed]

Worth, about 20 minutes after taking the picture of the jars, I wiped off the lids and any water stains and they look great. Those two in the middle are reflecting light off the ceiling fixture which is a tiffany designed glass shade.

I tried some of the white vinegar and found that it only served to discolor the aluminum on the inside of the canner (Presto). After that, I decided to just take the white fog off the jars by treating them separately in a hot vinegar bath. It does the job just fine.

[Worth1]

I let them cool and use glass cleaner.

Worth

[Salsacharley]

This is great Ted. How many pounds of tomatoes do you reckon you use to make 100 quarts of juice?

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Salsacharley

This is great Ted. How many pounds of tomatoes do you reckon you use to make 100 quarts of juice?

.

I am guessing 225 to 250 pounds maybe even 300.

[ContainerTed]

Originally Posted by Salsacharley

This is great Ted. How many pounds of tomatoes do you reckon you use to make 100 quarts of juice?

I have no idea. What I have is some plastic bowls that I bought from the Dollar Store for $1.00 a piece and I load them up to the rim with cut up chunks of tomatoes from my seed saving efforts. Two full bowls will yield from 6 to 8 quarts of juice depending on how much water is remaining in the chunks. I really don't know how much the bowls hold (never thought to measure).

I cut tomatoes and remove the seeds for saving. Then I chunk up the pieces and when I get a couple of bowls full, I make juice. There have been times in the past that I had as much as 20 quarts of unprocessed juice from the Food Mill that I reduced to as little as 12 quarts of juice to put in the jars. This is when you can make anything you want like soup, or sauce, or picante. It gets thick enough to make peaks on the surface of the big pot.

Every bit is slowly reduced to maintain the wonderful fresh flavor. And, again, it's worth the time spent.

[whistech]

Ted, thank you for the information and I was so trilled to see your canning effort that I forgot to say the sauce or thick juice looks absolutely delicious.

[clkingtx]

This REALLY makes me want to make tomato juice, too! Something to work toward for nest year, I guess.

[ContainerTed]

Okay, I did the measurements. Here's an example of the bowls I use. They are usually seen at the Dollar Stores around Halloween, in multiple colors, and costs one dollar. We also use them for popcorn. They hold 6 quarts. I usually start my juice making when I've got at least two of them full of tomato chunks. When I'm done with the Food Mill, I will have about one good handful of skins and some seeds left to go on the waste/compost pile.

I use the point of the knife to remove the seeds and the gel and collect it in a bowl or directly into a strainer. Then it goes into the pot and and the heat is applied slowly and kept low to prevent scorching or burning. Take your time with reducing the water from it. I wait until the reduction is done before adding approx. 1 teaspoon of canning salt per quart. I add the salt directly into the pot to allow me to taste it. This means it all will taste the same.

By removing the gel and seeds the way I do, I get two positive results. First, there is enough liquid in the gel to do the fermentation of the seeds, and the liquid I get from the Food Mill is much thicker to start with. It's one of those Win-Win things. If, for some reason, I'm not saving seeds (like with most hybrids), then I put it all into the Food Mill. This means more time in reducing the liquid, but that liquid around the seeds has a lot of flavor to add to the mix.

Here's the other pictures. The knife is 9 1/2 inches long.

[encore]

do you add any lemon juice? or are the tomatoes acidic enough? when i can tomato chunks or salsa it says to put lemon juice in just in case. just wondering.----tom

[ContainerTed]

Tom, I really try not to add anything else. Here are some links to "official" ways to do tomatoes and tomato juice. This is excellent reading and will help most folks plan a method to do their canning.

http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_03/tomato_juice.html

https://www.extension.purdue.edu/usdacanning/

http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/pu...ions_usda.html

http://foodsafety.wisc.edu/assets/pr...idtomatoes.pdf

The last one addresses the canning of "Juice". Note that all of the above talk about adding sugar to offset any "tartness" that is caused by adding the lemon juice (and the last one specifies that you do not use fresh lemons - only bottled juice - more processed ingredients?).

So, I decided to take my pressure above the 10 or 11 PSI in a pressure canner and take it to 15 PSI for 5 minutes to kill the botulism that is the concern that led to recommending adding lemon juice to decrease the PH of the canned product. That way, I don't have to add tartness and then sweetness and ....... by the time we get the PH correct, the flavor is not to be found.

As the article in the last link tells us, tomatoes in their test came in with PH values very near or below the 4.6 value that is considered safe for canning at 10 or 11 PSI in a pressure canner. Most tomatoes come in at or below the 4.6 value - some are as high as 4.9. The primary concern about those falling in the 4.6 to 4.9 range is that the acidity level will not guarantee the absence of the botulism agent. But, I know that botulism is killed by a pressure of 15 PSI for 3 minutes which takes the temp to 253 degrees F. I keep my canner at 15 PSI for 5 minutes and am comfortable with my procedure.

Again, I am not recommending anyone do this like I do. But I get the same flavor as the original summer tomatoes when I open a jar in January. My way has no recommendation from any competent official authority, and my opinion is based solely on my own preferences.

Having said all of that, I can say that there are a few dozen folks around here who have been "dazed and amazed" at their first taste. I feel like I make the best tomato juice on this planet. But then, I am a bit biased about this.

[Worth1]

Ted I would drink your juice any day of the week.
When you start adding stuff like acids you lose the flavor of the tomato.

Here is a trick I have posted here a few times to show how to sweeten store bought tomato juice without adding sugar.
Do this right before you drink it.
Add about 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda to 12 to 16 ounces of juice.
This neutralizes the acid and lets the natural sugars come out.
Use too much and it will taste alkali.

Here is what I came up with on the pounds of tomatoes probably wrong.

Ted is cooking down 20 quarts of tomato juice to get 12 quarts of tomato juice.
This means for every 12 quarts he is losing 8 quarts of water by way of evaporation.
12 quarts weight 24 pounds.
8 quarts of water weigh 16 pounds.
16 and 24 = 40.
There are 100 quarts 100/12=8.3.
8.3X40 is 332 pounds of juice alone not counting the weight of the waste seeds and jell not going into the kettle.

Did I get this right, probably not but if I am then my wild guess would be close to 360 pounds of tomatoes at least.





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