What are you canning now?

[rancher hicks]

If you ever figure it out, please share. I have 4 red apple and 3 green apple trees. I do nothing but prune them, which this past year is probably the second time in their life. They are quite mature, probably as old as yours. The apple are UGLY but I suppose they don't have to be pretty for applesauce. The red one is a combination of sweet and sour, but may not have been entirely ripe yet.

Who was it that talked about nursing some old neglected peach trees back to health? Would you share your secret? Ours basically need to be replaced, I think. The squirrels beat us to it all this year.

If the outside is not clean but the inside is just peel them. Got me some free pears one year. Peeled them and made a nice jam. You can of course cook up your apples for juice and make jelly. If no time freeze the juice measured to the recipe.

 

[rancher hicks]

How can I tell wild grapes that are safe to use in jelly? I pulled them down from the tree and hung them on the fence. I'm not sure I'll have enough for jelly but can juice them up and freeze it or add some farm bought grapes I suppose.

 

[3goodeggs]

Those are real wild grapes. the ones people think are grapes and are not grapes are these.

Do you see how the leaves are different? This is called pepper vine. The compound leaves means it is not grape. Your leaves are round and serrate so you are good.
They have a lot of seeds in them and a lot of pectin, so mixing them with other juices will work fine. It makes the best jelly.

 

[wyoDreamer]

@rancher hicks
The only way I know that the wild grapes are ripe is when the birds have eaten all of them.

Not much help, right?

How about this site? http://motherhood.modernmom.com/determine-grapes-ripe-6439.html

In summery - color: wild grapes are the original muscadane so they should be very dark, almost black in color
other visual: "All varieties will form a noticeable whitish coating when ripe. If you have seeded grapes, you can also check for readiness by examining the seeds: if the seeds are brown, then the fruit is ripe; if they remain green, the fruit needs more time on the vine." quoted directly from the above site
By feel: ripe grapes will feel slightly soft. They will give just a little bit when you squeeze them. if they are wrinkled and squishy, then too ripe.

 

[Kacey's Krazee's]

I don't understand why she would cook it at all, let alone add water to it. Why not grind it, put it in the jar like you would with regular, diced up meat and can it in that manner? It would then make its own juice like red meat generally does~which usually turns into a gel~ and could then be crisped up when used later on if desired, but usually ground, canned meat is used in chilis, spaghetti sauce and such and gets moist and soft with that use anyway.

Would it make any difference that it's venison? I've never canned venison so I don't know what the fat is like etc... Does it help with the gamey taste maybe to cook it first? Like sausage?.... I'm wondering too, about the cooking prior to canning... The only meat I've canned is salmon, and it was raw...

Not really. For one, venison has no gamey flavor if butchered properly, so that's a non issue if one is taking it from the woods to the table themselves but could be an issue if receiving it from someone else. If it had a horrible flavor in that case, I'd not be using it anyway. If wanting to use it anyway, some folks place a beef bouillon cube in each jar.

Venison is very, very lean, so any fat in the jar is a good thing...good for you and adds flavor and dimension to the meat. Most often there will be very little fat in a jar of venison.

Ah, I see... So then that would be why the juices were added back in.... I'm just seeing 2 extra steps lol...but if it improves the texture without taking away from the flavor, then I'm all ears

.. Have you gotten to taste a sample Kacey's Krazee's?

thanks for the posts and questions girls. I didn't have a good answer to your questions, so I went back on Utube and watched several more videos in regards to ground beef. Saw several reasons for doing both. One lady loved having the broth after adding hot water to her meat, that it became richer tasting with time. Another said, her meat in a broth was mealy and soft in texture. Another said it hindered what she could use the meat for when it was canned in broth. I thought about it, when using beef, that if it wasn't cooked first, and packed raw, that it could have more fat than I wanted in the jar, and the more fat, the faster it could possibly go rancid. Also, watching the videos, all of the fat could also impede the sealing process by the fat climbing the jar walls and not allowing the lids to properly seal. I am not sure how, but the first lady, who packed with hot water, said she could make meatballs with her canned beef.... I think I need to go and see how she was going to do that. I can see if packed with broth, it would be great for soups, but dry, could be used for many things, including soups too.
Not sure if I have answered any questions, or opened up a new conversation. I have not yet opened up any of the jars to use as of yet.

 

[rancher hicks]

Those are real wild grapes. the ones people think are grapes and are not grapes are these.

Do you see how the leaves are different? This is called pepper vine. The compound leaves means it is not grape. Your leaves are round and serrate so you are good.
They have a lot of seeds in them and a lot of pectin, so mixing them with other juices will work fine. It makes the best jelly.

@rancher hicks
The only way I know that the wild grapes are ripe is when the birds have eaten all of them.

Not much help, right?

How about this site? http://motherhood.modernmom.com/determine-grapes-ripe-6439.html

In summery - color: wild grapes are the original muscadane so they should be very dark, almost black in color
other visual: "All varieties will form a noticeable whitish coating when ripe. If you have seeded grapes, you can also check for readiness by examining the seeds: if the seeds are brown, then the fruit is ripe; if they remain green, the fruit needs more time on the vine." quoted directly from the above site
By feel: ripe grapes will feel slightly soft. They will give just a little bit when you squeeze them. if they are wrinkled and squishy, then too ripe.

thank you both.

 

[Beekissed]

Tomorrow I'll finish up canning small batches of slumgulleon and salsa, but then we are moving on to more corn for the day. That should complete our corn canning for the year, though we'll have to see the end results first to know if we'll go get more corn or not. I'd like to finish up with 50-60 qts of corn.

We have found it so essential to all our cooking(soups, pot pie, casseroles, salad, cornbread, stir fry, fried potatoes~try it...the corn gives it a crunch and sweetness that is just wonderful!) that we hate to not have enough on hand and have to scrimp and save on it. I have about 4-5 qts of last year's corn still, so we didn't do too badly but it was still down to the wire a bit.

After that, hopefully, we can put away a lot of the canning things for a bit until the apples ripen. We hope to glean enough to do a big batch in the copper kettle this year...first we'll make sauce, remove all the sauce we want from the kettle and then add ingredients to the kettle remains for making apple butter. This year we'll juice apples first to provide the cooking liquid in the kettle, as opposed to using water.

I don't know if y'all have ever done apples in a copper kettle before, but first it gets a good cleaning by heating water and ACV in the pot....which renders it as shiny inside as a new penny! It's just beautiful! I'll take pics of it when we do that.

 

[FamFitz]

PLEASE HELP!!

I think I just made a HUGE canning error. I've been searching all over the internet & in few different books I have w/no real answer (the two answers I found contradicted themselves). So with all the BYC Members, I came here and found this active canning thread. Hoping there is someone out there who can help.

Problem: I just made a batch of blueberry jam from berries I picked from my yard. I try to do my canning while the kids are at school/summer camp, but I made the mistake of doing it when everyone was home. With all the distractions I forgot to add the lemon juice to my batch of jam. By the time I realized my error, all the jars had sealed and cooled most of the way. (I read if they hadn't sealed I could open, dump in a pot, add juice, boil & re-can. But I was well past that point.) Is the jam ruined??

In case it helps to know, I use the hot pack method & powder pectin.

 

[shortgrass]

PLEASE HELP!!


I think I just made a HUGE canning error. I've been searching all over the internet & in few different books I have w/no real answer (the two answers I found contradicted themselves). So with all the BYC Members, I came here and found this active canning thread. Hoping there is someone out there who can help.

Problem: I just made a batch of blueberry jam from berries I picked from my yard. I try to do my canning while the kids are at school/summer camp, but I made the mistake of doing it when everyone was home. With all the distractions I forgot to add the lemon juice to my batch of jam. By the time I realized my error, all the jars had sealed and cooled most of the way. (I read if they hadn't sealed I could open, dump in a pot, add juice, boil & re-can. But I was well past that point.) Is the jam ruined??

In case it helps to know, I use the hot pack method & powder pectin.

You should be OK.... A taste test might not hurt, but my recipe for blueberry jam doesn't even call for lemon... Just sugar...

I'll assume it was a boil water canner, not pressure... The lemon juice does 3 things; helps with texture of the jam, makes it easier to spread...flavor, I make my pies with lemon juice, it just helps keep it from getting over sweet...and lastly, if it calls for more lemon, the recipe may need the acid to keep the ph stable for storage.

You'll be fine, IMO... Lemon juice in jams isostly for flavor, so storing shouldn't be an issue

If you feel you just HAVE to redo it, dump them all back out, add the lemon juice and another pack of pectin with 1/4 cup of sugar... And I found a fixer recipe that adds white grape juice to help...http://mobile.dudamobile.com/site/p...htm&utm_referrer=https://www.google.com/#2807

Open one up and see how you like the taste and texture; you might not need to do anything at all

 

[shortgrass]

freezing peaches and making peach butter in the crock pot. I do it outside so the house doesn't get hot and jar in in the evening.

Crock pot butter: 

fill crock pot 1-2" from the top with diced (what ever you have on hand) fruit and it's juice.

add one cup sweetener like  Splenda, white grape juice, sugar) and a dash of ground ground cloves,a dash all spice and 1 tea spoon of cinnamon for every 6 cups of fruit. 
Cook on low with the lid set so steam can escape. Cook till thick.I do it overnight but crock pots really vary in temperature so make your  first batch when you can keep an eye on it.

Put newspaper or a towel under the crock pot in case of splashes

6 cups of fruit makes about a quart of peach butter.

Lol I just got 2 boxes of Palisade Peaches, freestone red globes.... And I was looking for a good peach butter recipe....and here it is!!!

Thank you; I'm making this tomorrow night!