The first of many

  There are now 6 quart jars of tomatoes from our garden cooling in the kitchen . I did it all by myself - well , almost , I did use her notes in the canning cook book -and didn't screw it up too bad . Next time I'll be more careful to get all the trapped air out . From the looks of the 'mater patch I can repeat this every few days for the foreseeable future . We'll probably stop at 3 or 4 dozen jars , just have to see how many we actually get . The thing is , demand will grow to meet supply in this situation ...

Snag Yes , I'm old and crochety . Get off my lawn !

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Terry Coombs
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Awesome!

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T

it's very easy to process tomatoes. i'm not sure what the issue is with "get all the trapped air out" because you have to leave some head space at the top and that is air. processing heats and expands that air out of the jar and the lid seals and the vaccuum is created. there is still some air in there, but not too much.

songbird

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songbird

  There was air trapped down between the (quartered) tomatoes , one of the jars isn't near full . And the instructions said to stir things around in there to let it out - I didn't . They really are easy , but this is the first time I've done it instead of the wife . She knows all the tricks I'm learning ... but she has to work and wasn't here to help . And those 'maters needed cannin' right away .
Reply to
Terry Coombs

Terry Coombs wrote: ...

oh, ok, now i get it, when we put up tomato chunks there is usually enough liquid that such air pockets aren't in there that much. so perhaps you are using a less juicy tomato than we are (beefsteaks).

by the time i have the pot of tomatoes heated through for putting in jars they are mostly liquid with chunks. a few taps or pokes and they bubble up. i don't really worry about it. with acidic things a little air bubble isn't going to affect much at all. after a while i'm sure that it equalizes so that the little oxygen or whatever in there disperses. nitrogen being fairly inert, etc. yeah, i just don't worry... :)

the only times we've had issues with spoiling was one season when we had tomatoes with a lot of intrusions from the outer skin inwards and if we missed one of those and it was already starting to rot then it could ruin that jar. we only had one or two jars go off from that (out of several thousand). Mom's eyes being the way they are she sometimes can't see so i do actually try to do quality control and while i'm stirring the pots of tomatoes as they heat up i often can find things we've missed that i can pick out. there's enough acid in them that i could probably leave them in there but i'm picky. i doubt anyone other than me would notice (a very micro tiny speck and i'll track it down and get it out of there).

those tomatoes were a b*tch to process...

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songbird

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songbird

  Dayummmm ! Were they all like that ?
Reply to
Terry Coombs

...

about 2/3rds of them had those intrusions. all weren't that big. that one weighed nearly three lbs. it was so odd i had to take a pic...

i was so very glad to see that last year's crop were the more normal shape we were used to seeing. i'm not sure if that shape was from pollination or that those plants that year came from strange seeds or what.

songbird

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songbird

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