Jalapenos....Mmmmmm
What's Growing in the Garden
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Information I've read on sterilizing jars says if only processing in BWB for 5 minutes, then jars should be sterilized prior to being filled. Otherwise no need - longer processing times (10 minutes and up) it gets sterilized. So anything that is 10 minutes and longer processing time, I just wash the jars really well, then put upside down on a clean dish towel to dry until I am ready to fill them. Anything I process for just 5 minutes - which is only jams/jellies in the half-pint jars - I sterilize the jars in boiling water first.
I've seen what Tim refers to with pickles, but haven't tried it yet. This is the information I've seen on it. My wife is the only one in the house who eats pickles, and I did pickles the last two years. She's still working on the 2021 jars, hasn't even gotten to the 2022 jars yet, so I had no need to can pickles this year.
I've seen what Tim refers to with pickles, but haven't tried it yet. This is the information I've seen on it. My wife is the only one in the house who eats pickles, and I did pickles the last two years. She's still working on the 2021 jars, hasn't even gotten to the 2022 jars yet, so I had no need to can pickles this year.
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Thanks for posting the link Matt. That is the procedure I've used on fermented dill pickles and sauerkraut. Not used it on kimchi as I just keep half gallon jars of it in the basement fridge and let it keep "maturing" until it's gone.
I'm going to have to try it sometime, whether it's doing pickles for my wife or sauerkraut. Or trying to make kimchi - tried making it once. Then forgot about it as it got buried in the back of the basement fridge before we really got to try it. By the time we uncovered it, it was well into science experiment territory...
My cucumbers were terrible this year. Not enough to pickle. I'll try it next year or stick to sterilizing my jars first. Is my method sufficient or do I need to actually submerge them in Boiling water for 3(?) minutes?
If you're looking to sterilize, then, no, just swirling boiling water around in the jar isn't going to sterilize it. I use the National Center for Home Food Preservation as my main resource for canning information. This is their information on sterilizing jars and they say to boil the jars for 10 minutes to sterilize them and that pre-sterilizing the jars is not required if the processing time is 10 minutes or longer.
In my first year of canning (which was 2020), I found myself referencing the NCHFP website often enough that I bought this, which is the website in book form. It's been an immensely valuable resource to have on hand. I do also reference Ball's books and website, and occasionally another smaller website or two that publishes safe canning recipes, but the NCHFP is my main resource. Their information helped me make sure I knew what I was doing, and was doing it right, when I first started canning.
I don't have it and haven't read it, but the University of Georgia also has a food preservation guide available for purchase. I've been thinking about picking it up sometime.
I've been wanting a cider press for a couple years now. Just haven't had the time to build one. So until I can build a proper cider press, this is what I came up with. I used it tonight to press the cherries from the cherry bounce I made last year - we don't really eat the boozy cherries, but don't want to let the alcohol and juice within go to waste, so I like to press them to get as much of the alcohol and juice out that I can. It worked very well on that, plus on some apples I'd been soaking in alcohol to make apple schnapps with.
Did the test run tonight because it looks like I'll be needing to put it to work in the next couple days. Got a friend who has extra grapes and lots and lots of extra apples. So I've promised our boys that I will can grape juice (which I've done before and they love) and apple cider (which I've never made or canned before.
Yeah, it ain't pretty, but it'll get the job done. This press was passed on to me from my father as he is not able to use it anymore. I do think I'll probably give it a paint job at some point.
Did the test run tonight because it looks like I'll be needing to put it to work in the next couple days. Got a friend who has extra grapes and lots and lots of extra apples. So I've promised our boys that I will can grape juice (which I've done before and they love) and apple cider (which I've never made or canned before.
Yeah, it ain't pretty, but it'll get the job done. This press was passed on to me from my father as he is not able to use it anymore. I do think I'll probably give it a paint job at some point.
Looks like you got what you need to make a good start. Now you just need to make some slat matts and a head for the press and you are basically there.
Does the scissor jack work nice? Assume smooth movement versus the pump action of a bottle jack.
Yeah, in time I'll build the rest out. The scissor jack worked just fine. I went with that because I don't have a bottle jack, but had a scissor jack collecting dust in the corner.
Last night I got a few more jars of pickled shishitos made and in the fridge. 8 pints should get us through until next year. Whatever shishitos we get through the end of the season will either get blistered and eaten or made into bacon wrapped poppers, then frozen so we can pull them out to smoke whenever we want some.
Tomatoes have been coming in pretty well too. Got about 6 gallon bags in the freezer for me to make and can sauce with later on. Also have some I'm getting ready to make salsa with today.
Tomatoes have been coming in pretty well too. Got about 6 gallon bags in the freezer for me to make and can sauce with later on. Also have some I'm getting ready to make salsa with today.
Well, this wasn't growing in my garden, but was growing at a friend's - and now we're working on processing it all. Yesterday we stopped out and were sent home with some items. Today my friend stopped by with more to add. This friend is a member of the congregation I serve and he and his wife have "adopted" our boys as additional grandchildren.
Plums - 4 buckets, totaling 12 gallons - 3 gallons wild plums, 9 gallons from a plum tree that was planted when he was young, so close to a 70 year old tree.
Apples - 3 bushel sized boxes full, various kinds, suitable for juicing
Grapes - 2 gallon pail full of bunches
Crabapples - 2 gallon pail full
Honey - 10lb bucket (One of my friend's hobbies is beekeeping. Just a small hobby - "only" 50 hives and he figures he'll be pulling out close to 2,000lbs of honey once he's done extracting it all.)
Between last night and today I've run 7 batches of plums through the steam juicer to juice them all, yielding more than 5 gallons of juice. We'll be canning juice and making wine and melomel (mead w/ fruit) this weekend. Also ran the grapes through the steam juicer and got close to a half gallon of juice. So I'll get one quart jar canned and on the shelf and the rest will get drank up this weekend. Tomorrow we'll juice the apples and can cider. The crabapples I'm thinking of juicing and making a cyser with - they have a real nice tartness to them that I am hoping would shine through in the finished product.
Didn't get a chance to can that salsa yesterday - it was getting late - so I'm going to quick do that tonight. With everything prepped for it already, it won't take much time.
Plums - 4 buckets, totaling 12 gallons - 3 gallons wild plums, 9 gallons from a plum tree that was planted when he was young, so close to a 70 year old tree.
Apples - 3 bushel sized boxes full, various kinds, suitable for juicing
Grapes - 2 gallon pail full of bunches
Crabapples - 2 gallon pail full
Honey - 10lb bucket (One of my friend's hobbies is beekeeping. Just a small hobby - "only" 50 hives and he figures he'll be pulling out close to 2,000lbs of honey once he's done extracting it all.)
Between last night and today I've run 7 batches of plums through the steam juicer to juice them all, yielding more than 5 gallons of juice. We'll be canning juice and making wine and melomel (mead w/ fruit) this weekend. Also ran the grapes through the steam juicer and got close to a half gallon of juice. So I'll get one quart jar canned and on the shelf and the rest will get drank up this weekend. Tomorrow we'll juice the apples and can cider. The crabapples I'm thinking of juicing and making a cyser with - they have a real nice tartness to them that I am hoping would shine through in the finished product.
Didn't get a chance to can that salsa yesterday - it was getting late - so I'm going to quick do that tonight. With everything prepped for it already, it won't take much time.
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It seems to have been a great year for fruit in the Midwest. Happy that you have such great friends that share their bounty.
I've got more apples and peaches than I can use/process/preserve, and am running out of people to give them to. Q: would you like some apples? Great, here is a 5 gallon bucket for you...
I've got more apples and peaches than I can use/process/preserve, and am running out of people to give them to. Q: would you like some apples? Great, here is a 5 gallon bucket for you...
Wish you were closer; I'd gladly take the peachesIt seems to have been a great year for fruit in the Midwest. Happy that you have such great friends that share their bounty.
I've got more apples and peaches than I can use/process/preserve, and am running out of people to give them to. Q: would you like some apples? Great, here is a 5 gallon bucket for you...
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I agree - it has been a great year for fruit in the Midwest. I've had a few people say their trees have never been so full of fruit. Even have one person I know who planted plum trees in the past - one 5 years ago, the other about 10 years ago - and this is the first year he's ever gotten fruit from them.
Seems for the garden as well - most everyone I know had their garden really take off and do really well once we got past the really dry start to summer. I've certainly been happy with how well our garden has produced this year.
Even some of the farmers around here, depending on the timing of their planting (mainly if they got seed in the ground prior to the last bit of rain before it got dry for a while) have been talking about how well their crops are doing and how good the yields are.
Seems for the garden as well - most everyone I know had their garden really take off and do really well once we got past the really dry start to summer. I've certainly been happy with how well our garden has produced this year.
Even some of the farmers around here, depending on the timing of their planting (mainly if they got seed in the ground prior to the last bit of rain before it got dry for a while) have been talking about how well their crops are doing and how good the yields are.
We had zero peaches, 2 apples, 6 pears but the bears got them. Bad year hear accept, maraschino cherries were a bumper.It seems to have been a great year for fruit in the Midwest. Happy that you have such great friends that share their bounty.
I've got more apples and peaches than I can use/process/preserve, and am running out of people to give them to. Q: would you like some apples? Great, here is a 5 gallon bucket for you...
So far been a terrible year with that fast freeze had early in winter that pretty much wiped out a bunch of stuff. So far only 2 pawpaws and 2 Japanese persimmons are on the tree. Pears are all in squirrel stomachs and the dogs have grown back from the roots, and 2 have some figs, but won't be enough summer to ripen. Black walnuts bumper crop. Enough so that them #@$%&$@#$%&&### squirrels are dropping them on me. They've allowed me the first 2 tomatoes, but they've gotten the rest.
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A sampling of last night's canning efforts. Maybe I should also add early this morning's efforts too - I pulled the last jars out of the canner about 2AM. I got three gallons of plum juice taken care of last night. Still have about 2 1/2 gallons left. Will can on Sunday whatever doesn't get made into wine or melomel.
From left to right:
Plum Juice (unsweetened, which will allow us to do whatever we want with it later on)
Plum Lemonade Concentrate
Grape Juice
Corn and Cherry Tomato Salsa
From left to right:
Plum Juice (unsweetened, which will allow us to do whatever we want with it later on)
Plum Lemonade Concentrate
Grape Juice
Corn and Cherry Tomato Salsa
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Picked some Calabrian peppers tonight, happy with the production so far. About a gallon of peppers off three plants.
We did apple cider today. Had about 3 bushels of apples. In order to get them to fit through my friend's grinder, we had to cut them all into small chunks, which gave us a chance to sort through the apples. They were a variety of apples from around his property, all old trees, some wild. He doesn't spray - that would affect the bees too much. By the time we were done sorting and cutting, a little over a bushel's worth went into the composter - but we expected that.
All said and done, we got about 11 quarts of delicious apple cider, which I'll can tomorrow night. I then got about 3 quarts from the crabapples he gave us - that I want to try making a hard cider with. The crabapple cider has good flavor, a lot of tartness, very little sweetness. I'll definitely need to use sugar in it, but I am going to aim for semi-dry - it needs a little sweetness, but I really want to try and make that tart stand out, if I can.
I did get plum wine and wild plum melomel started last night. Doing 1 gallon batches as that's what I have for fermenting vessels.
All said and done, we got about 11 quarts of delicious apple cider, which I'll can tomorrow night. I then got about 3 quarts from the crabapples he gave us - that I want to try making a hard cider with. The crabapple cider has good flavor, a lot of tartness, very little sweetness. I'll definitely need to use sugar in it, but I am going to aim for semi-dry - it needs a little sweetness, but I really want to try and make that tart stand out, if I can.
I did get plum wine and wild plum melomel started last night. Doing 1 gallon batches as that's what I have for fermenting vessels.
Sounds odd to hear any went to compost, or did you mean after pressing you had a bushel worth to compost. Other wise, why would you pick bad apples to start with? Guess you cored them before pressing, that adds to the compost.