What are you canning now?

[mich9510]

I would only pressure can apples. They're not acidic.

 

[Beekissed]

Apples are almost entirely acid! We've never pressure canned an apple in our lives. No need to add lemon, pressure can or otherwise alter the acidity of apples, they are just fine canned in BWB.

In fact, it's pretty customary to make sauce or apple butter in a large kettle and just bottle it hot, letting the hot material seal the jars and no further processing done at all.

 

[WPFarmstead]

I'm with Beekissed on this one. Apples are very much able to be water bathed, as are most fruit (although many require at least some added acid)

 

[Christabean]

I would only pressure can apples. They're not acidic.

You must be thinking of something else. As Beekissed said, they are one of the classic water-bath safe canning foods. When in doubt you can always google "is ___ safe for water bath canning?" and a bunch of official food safety sites will come up! Asian pears/apple pears sometimes are lower acid and there's a formula for how much citric acid or bottled lemon juice to add, for example.

To the people asking for tried-and-true fast apple canning recipes, this is just my second year canning and my first time processing larger amounts (bushels!) and I have done a LOT of trial and error to hopefully spare you some work. For the absolute fastest I've tried for just getting them in a jar; no peeling and you just core and run through the food processor: http://www.mrswheelbarrow.com/2010/10/spiced-apples-in-a-jar/
I did find you taste the peel and notice the texture, but I tried adding about 1/3 jar of shredded apples to applesauce, and that worked very well and saved a little peeling.

On the other hand . . . don't peel your apples first if you're making applesauce, It's easier to quarter them and strain out the skins when they are cooked down enough to separate from the fruit. I would guess it takes about 1/2 as long to strain them out as to peel, using just a metal sieve, and with a food mill the time would be negligible. Here's some instructions; pretty much every canning site has a similar recipe: http://www.simplycanning.com/canning-applesauce.html
Just to be super sure the color stays nice, I plunk my quartered (and de-spotted/de-bugged!) apples into a big pot about 1/5 full of water with a teaspoon of citric acid in it (equivalent to 1/4 cup bottled lemon juice) and that's the only liquid I use.

If you want to make apple butter you can use a recipe or just cook down your applesauce for an hour or so until it darkens and thickens, and add spices and sugar to taste.

And last but not least I made a ton of this apple pie filling and really like it: http://www.simplycanning.com/canning-apple-pie-filling.html I use 1 tsp citric acid instead of lemon juice, increase the spices and cut the sugar to 4 cups. I also tried combining thawed plums with this prepared recipe, increasing sugar, acid and clear jel, and it's fabulous. Some people aren't comfortable adjusting recipes, but in this case the only thing that's going to potentially lead to botulism is the clear jel, all other ingredients are too acidic, so bear that in mind and keep the starch/acid ratio at least as high as the approved recipe. I set up my tablet with Netflix on the table while I peel; takes about one and a half episodes of a 40-minute show to peel and slice enough for one recipe. I use one of those corer/slicers you press down over the top of the apple, and then cut those slices each in half unless the apple is small. Dump them into a large bowl of water with a little citric acid to prevent browning, before draining them and dumping into boiling water as in the recipe. Don't boil the slices too long or they break down and spoil all your laborious peeling and slicing!

I have been a busy lady this fall, check out my canning cupboards:

All that is from my plum tree, asian pear, and very meager tomato and apple harvest, as well as my parents' bumper crop of apples. (I also got a small box of peaches from a friend and added a bag of store-bought blueberries to add variety to some of the plum jam.) Hope everyone I know wants jam for Christmas! :-D

PS: You won't need it this year but I also learned to be a pro at processing plums!! By far the fastest way: Cut your plums in half, don't pit them, place in a single layer cut-side-up in a glass pie pan or cake pan, cover with plastic wrap and microwave 5 minutes per batch. You'll probably finish the next batch as the first one beeps. Once you have 4 batches done, (or however many glass dishes you have!) let them cool half an hour or so. The skins will slip right off and a quick squeeze of each half will determine if you have a plum to remove or not (if you have super dark plums like me). Then make jam or freeze (they get watery-er if you freeze and may need cooking down, but otherwise taste just as good).

 

[wyoDreamer]

I have canned just apples in apple juice. I bought 100% apple juice from Sam's Club. I peeled, quartered, cut out the core, then cut the quarters into 1/4" thick pieces. They end up less than 1" in size. I put them into water with lemon juice just until I got them all sliced to keep them from turning brown. Warm up the apple juice, drain the apples, spoon the apples into the hot jars, top off with the hot apple juice, then process.

They were great added to oatmeal, muffins, caramel apple bread, pork chops, and a lot of other things. I would pour the whole jar into a sauce pan with sugar and cinnamon to cook down and smash for chunky apple sauce to go with pork chops. Saute the apples in butter with sugar and cinnamon and pour pancake mix over top for german apple pancakes (use double the eggs for a richer pancake).

 

[Debbiedodo]

I would go to the National Center for Home Food Preservation website http://nchfp.uga.edu/ You will find info and recipes on canning apples.

 

[Peep_Show]

Harvested the green bean tower yesterday. Put a pound or two in the freezer and then made spicy pickled green beans with the rest (homegrown jalapeno in there). Used nine 12 oz. jelly jars, which allows for longer beans and less waste.

 

[Peep_Show]

Nice pantry, Christabean!

 

[mamatink7]

Ok everyone, I'm fairly new to canning but so far have canned zucchini and squash, tomatoes, and made dill pickles. I have an Apple tree with nice tart apples so I wanted to can them for eating later in the year. I need some recipes for canned apples just for eating plain, for Apple pie filling and applesauce. I've found some online but wanted some tried and true recipes. Thanks in advance!

always with apples, you add lemon juice. With just canned apple slices; add water apples lemon juice. May do this year.
We can fried apples (better than Cracker barrel). Slice apples put lemon juice pint of water l-m heat cover then start adding the good stuff. I ONLY use brown sugar when Canning apples, seems to bring out natural apple juices to the jars. Then sprinkle cinnamon stir, boil then can.
Do the same for applesauce just mash. Apple butter is applesauce cooked down for 24hr till it's consistency you want.
That's an added favorite each yr. Now we add apples to other fruit jars (apple blackberry jam...)
I never do a tart apple though. Honeycrisp, red & golden delicious.

 

[Intheswamp]

Making broth...

This has baffled me. If you want to can meat broth you only have to process it for like 20/25 minutes for pints/quarts. Aren't botulism spores still active alive and well even though it's been boiled at 212F for the stated time? How do you get around the normal 75/90 minute time being as even though you may strain the meat out of the broth that there are still tiny pieces and even botulism spores probably free floating in the juices????

http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/usda/GUIDE05_HomeCan_rev0715.pdf