Canning Season.

[Worth1]

Gauges they have on modern canners are about a junkie as you can get.
I did find some new ones (County Line brand )at Tractor Supply that were sitting on 10 pounds already.
Those were really junkie.
My old ones are a work of art.
For All American to put a quality gauge on a canner it would drag the cost up at least another 50 dollars if not more.
With the weight gauge the pressure gauges are nothing more than a pressure indicator anyway to show if there is any pressure in the canner.
It is also a good indicator to show if the vent tube is stopped up for some reason and something to keep an eye on.
You just cant be too careful around a steam pressure vessel.

Worth

[clkeiper]

Sometimes canning season is an experiment......and I am winging this one. I am thinking that converting it from a cook and eat to a canned recipe. any thoughts?
this is a local dish that is served in the chicken houses in Barberton. there is nothing like it anywhere I am thinking, but I could be totally wrong. It is Hungarian and Serbian by history. these restaurants were primarily run by these immigrants. Sometimes they serve it really thin and other times it could be very thick. maybe it depends on how early in the pot you got a dish of it, I don't know, but it is different and yummy. it is used to dip your french fries in if you want ( not those little itty bitty fries like Mc D's, but those great big long fresh cut fries like at the fair). I just eat it with a spoon.
Barberton Hot Sauce
4-6 cloves garlic
5#'s or so of tomatoes diced or pureed
4 finely diced bell peppers
1/2 to 1 c finely diced celery
3 or 4 hot peppers of your choice
cook in crock pot until soft. 4-6 hours maybe
add a splash of apple cider vinegar
1/2 to 1 c brown sugar
1-2 T sweet paprika
2-3 T butter
add these to taste .
place in pints or quarts and can for 25 min at 10#'s
add rice after opening either cooked or simmer raw rice until done adding water as needed in small amounts until done.

any thoughts?

[coronabarb]

Carolyn, there is a saying - "Canning is a science, not an art" for a reason. If we could look at an impromptu recipe and declare it safe to can at the times you give for a weight gauge, there would be no reason for Ball or NCHFP to put money into testing recipes. My advice is to either make and freeze this recipe or look at Ball/Bernardin for something similar. There are a few things you can safely substitute, like green tomatoes for red or hot peppers for mild. The problem with this recipe is that it has low acid veggies and only a splash of vinegar, not acid enough to keep botulism spores from blooming in the jar with no oxygen. Density could be a problem too since you are cooking until soft. This would be a *no* from me...my thoughts.

[coronabarb]

Worth, you are right and the quality of Ball, etc keeps declining too. I use weights and use the gauge as you describe, as a guideline on when pressure has dropped sufficiently to crack open the lid. As Master Food Preservers, we test pressure gauges at our local Farmers Market all summer long as a service. It is true that the gauges can be off more than 2# right from the box. (two pounds is the cut-off for use...anything more and we advise to replace the gauge)

[coronabarb]

Forget that last answer, lol! I have too much on my mind today and was thinking water bath. Driving daughter to airport 1 1/2 hrs away today up and over a few low mt passes in the rain. Oye!

Hot sauce...I would not add butter. Oils aren't recommended unless it is from a tested recipe. Your recipe is similar to hot sauce and bbq sauces except that they all have vinegar and are water bath canned.
http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_03/bbqsauce.html

Still looking...

[coronabarb]

You could compare it to this pressure canned recipe;
http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_salsa/m...ato_sauce.html

Why it would probably be better to just freeze this recipe -
http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/nc...ets/salsa.html

[clkeiper]

Barb, this is no thicker than the tomatoes and celery recipe in the Ball book. it is very liquid. the thickness comes from the rice after cooking it. and the tomatoes and celery recipe doesn't call for any vinegar or citric acid to make it more acidic than the tomatoes. it calls for optional salt.

I got interrupted as I was typing this ... someone wanted a peck of tomatoes for of all things hot sauce...he showed me his recipe which has been in his family for generations according to him... his grandmother made it and he is older than me. my grandma passed away at 92 12 years ago. almost an identical recipe to what I was tweaking for the fresh serve recipe. only he does open kettle canning of it.... I am not afraid to pressure can what I made yesterday but no way ever would I open kettle can it. no water bath no pressure canning of it.

I didn't see your other response until I posted this one either. I was thinking I could leave out the sugar and add that later and I didn't add any butter. I have seen pizza sauce recipes thought that called for oil... it looks disgusting in the jar and I don't understand why you would want to can it with oil floating on the top anyway. it was a Ball recipe. needless to say it is still sitting in my pantry not being used.

[Worth1]

My beloved friend I have in Colorado I met when he was 28 in Alaska is now in his 40's.
I talked him into buying a house putting in a garden and now he has bought a pressure canner.

[Worth1]

Anybody run across a dead weight gauge tester at a yard sale for cheap let me know.
Google it to see what I am looking for if you want.
It is one of those things that costs tons of money but the unknowing would sell for junk.
Worth

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by clkeiper

Sometimes canning season is an experiment......and I am winging this one. I am thinking that converting it from a cook and eat to a canned recipe. any thoughts?
this is a local dish that is served in the chicken houses in Barberton. there is nothing like it anywhere I am thinking, but I could be totally wrong. It is Hungarian and Serbian by history. these restaurants were primarily run by these immigrants. Sometimes they serve it really thin and other times it could be very thick. maybe it depends on how early in the pot you got a dish of it, I don't know, but it is different and yummy. it is used to dip your french fries in if you want ( not those little itty bitty fries like Mc D's, but those great big long fresh cut fries like at the fair). I just eat it with a spoon.
Barberton Hot Sauce
4-6 cloves garlic
5#'s or so of tomatoes diced or pureed
4 finely diced bell peppers
1/2 to 1 c finely diced celery
3 or 4 hot peppers of your choice
cook in crock pot until soft. 4-6 hours maybe
add a splash of apple cider vinegar
1/2 to 1 c brown sugar
1-2 T sweet paprika
2-3 T butter
add these to taste .
place in pints or quarts and can for 25 min at 10#'s
add rice after opening either cooked or simmer raw rice until done adding water as needed in small amounts until done.

any thoughts?

I have considered this for many days now and wanted to give an honest opinion on it with some good practical scientific information.
Number one. the toxin can be killed if boiled for ten minutes at 212 degrees longer if the altitude is higher.
Still looking for the chart for killing the spores as far as time and temperature.
There is a good one out there but cant find it again.
Here is one to get people started.
This is not an open invitation to do things not recommended but to show folks a little more about what they are dealing with.
This is going to be a long post so bare with me.
Some of it will be examples of other things in like some way out there but it will get the point across.
Would a person eat something they knew had the toxin in it even after it was boiled?
I wouldn't.
Would a person eat something they didn't know whether or not had the toxin in it after it was boiled but just being on the safe side?
The latter being processed properly.
I would.
The latter is what we are told to do.
The former is what we are told not to do.
Both having more or less the same results.
(More or less) is a big statement here.

An example in other ways of life is.
Would a person have intimate relations with another person if they knew they had an STD even with protection?
Or would they use this same protection if they might have one but didn't know?
Again the latter is what we are told to do.
In both cases you cant look at the suspected food or person and tell anything.
In one the food looks to good to be contaminated the other the person is too pretty or hansom to have anything.
This is a question I have asked many people.
It makes them stop and think.

Next is a predicament that confounds me to no end.
Potatoes.
They do not have any approved recipes or formulas for canning potatoes with the skin on.
BUT you see people do it all the time.'
The reason for no information is the skin may have the spores on it from the soil.
Doesn't the processing kill this stuff?
Another is I see people all the time on the web canning dried beans with water in them.
Nowhere is there any approved recipe for this.
Both of the above I will not do.
When it comes to salsa or any other made up recipe I can I do my best to find something like it and give it long hard thought.
Then I over kill.

An example in the above recipe to be on the safe side I would use pickled garlic celery and peppers.
Then I would acidify with citric acid at the recommended amounts per recipe.
Just to be on the safe side.
Then can at the recommended times you are doing.
Many of the salsas I make are acidified in this way.

My mind tells me what you are doing is just fine.
The pints for sure.
But by all means dont take my word for it.

Worth

[clkeiper]

Worth, my customer that stopped who wanted a peck of tomatoes to make pretty much the exact recipe doesn't even waterbath his recipe. only open kettles it. good grief... I wouldn't touch that with a 10' pole. not afraid for anything from a pressure canner for 25 minutes but never would I try it after it has been opened and cooked again.

I won't confess to the things I have canned as I am not interested on getting chewed on by what I do. what happens in my kitchen... stays in my kitchen.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by clkeiper

Worth, my customer that stopped who wanted a peck of tomatoes to make pretty much the exact recipe doesn't even waterbath his recipe. only open kettles it. good grief... I wouldn't touch that with a 10' pole. not afraid for anything from a pressure canner for 25 minutes but never would I try it after it has been opened and cooked again.

I won't confess to the things I have canned as I am not interested on getting chewed on by what I do. what happens in my kitchen... stays in my kitchen.

Not condemning your canning by any stretch of the imagination.
To the contrary.

[taboule]

Things coming to an end for me, this is probably the last batch of sauce, from my own tomatoes at least. Town I moved to has many small farms, will see if I can find seconds by the bushel that are reasonably priced.

1.jpg

this will get messy, not sure why it's inverted.

Here it is bubbling away

[taboule]

Seems to be fixed, although I still don't know why the orientations of the photos were off. I get that when capturing/sending from my phone.

Here's the final product. Plain, came out a bit thin, i didn't want to boil it too much to keep that fresh taste. With matching lids this time. Partially filled jar is for tomorrow's Bloody Mary's.

3.jpg

[Worth1]

I see you're loving your tomato strainer.
Worth