Ducks4you 2021 Ragtag Thread

[ducks4you]

3) Deskin an cut out anything you Don't want to eat. L I T E R A L L Y. Some folks like the tomato membrane, some don't. Up to you.
THIS is what I cut out...for composting.

 

[ducks4you]

4) Get your produce to BOILING. I own 3 crockpots. One is brand new, hardly used and Excellent for cooking a meal. The old white one tries to burn food. The old black one isn't much better.
They are Both PERFECT for heating up food to can. (Broke the white lid, and an even older crock pot with a black lid stopped working, hence the hybrid.)

 

[ducks4you]

5) Fill jars. You probably already have the utentsils: plastic canning funnel, magnetic lid grabber, jar picker upper--I forgot the common terms, these are Mine. I clear my sink, fill my jars on rh side, and put my crock pot with produce on the lh side. I have gotten tired of too much juice, so this year I removed the tomatoes with a slotted spoon to put into the jars, There is Still PLENTY of juice. I use a long teaspoon to push out the bubbles and remove any juice if the jar is too full. I fill them all for one batch, then wet a paper towel to wipe both the rims and screw top areas clean, then put on the lids and screw tops finger tight. BEFORE I move them to the stove, which is across the room from my sink, I pour boiling water from the kettle over all of the jars to clean off any produce I may have spilled.
I move my jars over the stove where the water has a brisk boil, and stage them next it. At this point the whole stovetop is hot, so not likely to crack.
Yes, I HAVE had jars crack before. Don't cry if this happens, but it is ALWAYS cold meets hot that does the shattering...and I big mess to clean up.
Yes, I use a long meat fork to pick up the lid of the canner, so I am not burnt by it.

 

[ducks4you]

6) Don't cut short the boiling time. These 2 batches boiled for 45 minutes each.
MEANWHILE, I boiled ONLY 4 quarts in the 1st batch. They HAVE to be constantly covered by water, and I have discovered that 7 quarts are never covered, and the water boils away.
There was still juice left in the black crockpot, so I added older jars of tomatoes for beans for tomorrow's chili.


DH started labelling my jars last year, hence 2 different handwriting.

 

[ducks4you]

I take canned tomatoes to my blender for the chili beans. It always amazes me how quickly they soak up liquid.

 

[ducks4you]

Can't go anywhere waiting on a time, so I wash, dry and prep my jars for their next canning jobs.


The 1/2 gallon jars are next to IMPOSSIBLE to get to seal, so I use them for dry storage, in this case, it was beans.

 

[ducks4you]

Beans NOW cooking on the left, 2nd batch of tomatoes keeping hot on the right, far right is my big, wooden cooling board. I MAY not remove the jars until tomorrow. It will take them most of today to cool, anyway.

I DID keep a few for eating, and a couple that came off before ripening, to ripen inside.

 

[ducks4you]

2nd batch included 2 pints of juice, plus 1/4 pint...so I got my Vitamin C for the day. I counted 50 (fifty) hours JUIST to put up the fencing, tie up and prune these red THINGS!!! Not gonna waste any juice!

 

[ducks4you]

Beans are alREADY soaking up the juice!

 

[ducks4you]

Today's canning, start to finish, 7AM-11:30.