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It turns out that it's hard to read a pH test strip when it's been dunked in tomatoes, because it's red from the tomatoes.  The difficulty of getting a precise reading on pH is presumably a big part of why everyone says to only use verified recipes. But I think the procedure if you really want to test at home would be to make your mix, process it, but reserve some mix in a container you keep in the fridge. Test that later, and if it's problematic, you reprocess everything.
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Jul 21, 2022 17:54
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I forgot to add that I test the ph before canning, then any failed jars the next day, and then test the jars as I open them. It makes me feel better about going off-recipe anyway.
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Jul 22, 2022 01:43
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Went ahead and pressure-canned the salsa today; pretty straightforward. The recipe book that came with the canner didn't have rules for cooking tomatoes as a low acid food, but I read through all the other recipes and the most conservative canning recipes (for things like meats and beans) at my elevation were 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure, so that's what I did. I probably could have just added acid and re-processed them in a hot water bath, but I wanted to be certain that if any botulism did somehow develop in the 1 day the jars spent in my cupboard instead of my fridge, that'd get killed off and any toxins denatured. It's almost certainly paranoia, but since I had the option, I figured I might as well. One of my favorite little things about pressure canning is that after you remove the jars from the canner, they'll continue to bubble internally for over an hour. The residual heat and extra-low air pressure inside the jars makes for some funky effects.
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Jul 24, 2022 23:42
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I've been making some Kimchii and its been coming out pretty good. Though I may have used too much of the Korean chili powder this time. But i've also tried a few batches of Sauerkraut. Not one has come out as good as store bought. Its not bad, just not as good as I want it to be. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Except for that first batch when I tried putting garlic in it. Not doing that again. Wasn't bad just powerfully overwhelming. I have been winging it on the salt though, but that shouldnt be screwing it up that bad. Though I have bought a scale for this one last try. I also tried fermenting some red onions. Which the juice came out amazing and I used it in a lot of dishes. The onions on the other hand were sorta bland, not sure why.
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Jul 25, 2022 06:09
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Don’t wing it on salt with the sauerkraut. And use good salt. Add some of the thin clear juice from a yogurt if that doesn’t work. Ferment the onions with other stuff like pickles or in a Giardiniera they’ll come out better.
Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Jul 25, 2022 |
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Jul 25, 2022 06:15
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And garlic will off gas foulness while fermenting. While fermenting it’s marriage ending foul. It’s great when it’s done though.
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Jul 25, 2022 06:25
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OgNar posted:I've been making some Kimchii and its been coming out pretty good. Make sure you have the right amount of salt to cabbage. It's 3 tablespoons of salt to 5 pounds of shredded cabbage. Layer salt and shredded cabbage in a large bowl. Let it sit for 15 - 20 minutes. Use a weighted tool to pound the poo poo out of it. It should be reduced in volume in the bowl by half and nice and juicy. Whatever you're using to ferment your kraut in you have to keep all of the cabbage submerged. A plastic bag filled with salt water works if you're using mason jars. If you're using a crock you can use stones made for the crock or a plate weighted down by a brick, a rock, something heavy so the cabbage stays submerged in the liquid. Depending on where you ferment your kraut, temperature of the room, etc, it takes about 8 to 12 weeks for the kraut. Pickling salt or kosher salt is the best. You don't want iodized table salt. HUGE PUBES A PLUS fucked around with this message at 12:43 on Jul 25, 2022 |
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Jul 25, 2022 12:41
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I wonder if you're not missing some caraway flavor in your sauerkraut, vs the store-bought stuff? I love mine plain, but I made a few jars with caraway, dill, and mustard seeds and it's definitely closer to what I get at restaurants and the store. Also I wonder about your fermentation temperature and how long you let your sauerkraut ferment. All will affect what bacteria colonize and ultimately thrive in your jars. A longer and slower ferment usually will invite more of the bacteria that make a variety of good chemicals. See this website for all you could ever want to know about making sauerkraut. No affiliation, she just has solid info. Of note, the best batch of sauerkraut I made was with Morton's kosher salt and 75% red cabbage and left in my hallway closet for 6 weeks this winter (ambient temp around 68F).
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Jul 26, 2022 02:24
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Went ahead and pressure-canned the salsa today; pretty straightforward. The recipe book that came with the canner didn't have rules for cooking tomatoes as a low acid food Because tomatoes are relatively acidic, even on their own without added acid they'll often be under pH of 4.6 and thus safe from botulism. Acid in the tomato recipes is just a precaution in case you happened to get a batch of particularly low-acid tomatoes with pH of 4.9 or so.
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Jul 26, 2022 10:14
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I like to add caraway and juniper berries.
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Jul 26, 2022 14:05
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Pyromancer posted:Because tomatoes are relatively acidic, even on their own without added acid they'll often be under pH of 4.6 and thus safe from botulism. Acid in the tomato recipes is just a precaution in case you happened to get a batch of particularly low-acid tomatoes with pH of 4.9 or so. I'm aware that I'm being paranoid, yes. Probably everything would've been fine with the original water-bath canned salsa, but I didn't really feel like risking it, even if the risk was small. Botulism will gently caress you up.
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Jul 26, 2022 15:21
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Salsa contains low acid foods even though you may add lime juice and vinegar based on your recipe you must pressure can it if you want to keep it shelf stable.
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Jul 26, 2022 19:47
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HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:Salsa contains low acid foods even though you may add lime juice and vinegar based on your recipe you must pressure can it if you want to keep it shelf stable. Are you sure about this? I mean, cucumbers are a low-acid food, but you can preserve them in a water bath canner if you just add enough vinegar to the mix. A sufficiently acidic salsa should be fine to can in a water bath, so long as there aren't, like, impervious membranes in there that the acid can't penetrate. I do agree that you shouldn't rely on just the natural acidity of the tomatoes, to be clear -- you need vinegar or some other acidity booster in sufficient quantity to drive the pH low enough.
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Jul 26, 2022 20:15
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Hit the Farmer's Market yesterday. Loaded up of fruit. Two batches of cherry jam down - sour cherry, and a heavily spiced mixed sweet and sour. Mace and cinnamon, which I love on toast. Making something new : blueberry conserve, which is sort of a lovechild of marmalade and jam. But with raisins, too! 4 cups blueberries, 1/2 lemon, 1/2 lime, 1/2 orange, all paper thin sliced (yay mandolin), with 1/2 cup golden raisins and 4 cups sugar, 2 cups water. Hoping it's a success. No pectin outside of the citrus - any of you ever done conserves?
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Aug 7, 2022 21:27
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This is probably going to be a stupid question, but a lot of recipes (and even the OP) mention thermometers, and only say something like 'The easiest way to test your jam is by using a sugar thermometer, bring the jam to 105C.' Is it instantly ready then (not in my experience), or should it stay there for some time, how long? I made nectarine jam this year, and it's probably one of my favourites (similar to peach).
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Aug 8, 2022 04:00
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From what I recall from when I used to make candy, as soon as the mix hits a certain temperature, you've achieved the desired chemical transformation of the sugar and can proceed to the next step. Of course, you should be stirring constantly to make sure that the temperature is uniform throughout the mix. That said, I don't think 105C is a significant candy temperature; it's just signifying that all of the water in the mix has been boiled off. You're not going to get your jam any thicker at that point without adding pectin (or burning it, I guess ).
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Aug 8, 2022 04:11
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:From what I recall from when I used to make candy, as soon as the mix hits a certain temperature, you've achieved the desired chemical transformation of the sugar and can proceed to the next step. Of course, you should be stirring constantly to make sure that the temperature is uniform throughout the mix. Ah that clarifies a lot, thanks so much:)
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Aug 8, 2022 08:32
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Arkhamina posted:Hit the Farmer's Market yesterday. Loaded up of fruit. i've never thought of putting spice in jam, gonna have to try that, it sounds delicious. i've also never made a conserve but it sounds tasty too. i did make some strawberry jam this weekend and it all sealed   i really improved my canning setup this year. we got an induction burner, and i put it in the garage where there's a stainless steel counter/sink designed for game processing. it was so nice not to fill my kitchen with heat and humidity in the middle of summer.
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Aug 8, 2022 15:37
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Had a recipe for 'apple pie Jam' (basically pie filling on toast. Made me think of other pies I like...  I was mighty tired by 4pm. 6 hours of canning.
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Aug 8, 2022 16:25
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apple pie jam sounds dangerously delicious. i just looked up recipes for watermelon jelly, and also came across one for sweet cucumber jelly. i'm intrigued. has anyone here tried either of those before?
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Aug 9, 2022 04:24
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Arkhamina posted:Had a recipe for 'apple pie Jam' (basically pie filling on toast. Made me think of other pies I like... Oh, that does sound dangerous. Six hours though, dang! What made it take so long? Even if you only have one rack, that's only three batches that I see, so what am I missing?
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Aug 9, 2022 04:54
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Get the water up to temp, give the jars a pre scrub (they live in the basement) sterilize, pit the 7 pounds of cherries by hand (ugh) then cook each of three batches in sequence. The conserve took about 30 minutes to simmer down to the proper thickness. I have one big steel pot I use to cook the jam, so basically did a batch of dishes between each. Also each had 15 minutes process time, and I did make a vegetable casserole in there too. Since I had the mandolin knife out and dirty anyhow, I shaved down a couple zucchini to do that fake lasagna where you use strips of veg instead of noodles. I did have to duck out to the store to get citrus for the conserve too. I now have a half lemon, lime, and orange to use for ... Something?
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Aug 9, 2022 18:45
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Ahh, when I do multiple batches, I cook the entire batch all at once, and then leave it on low heat until it's ready to be processed. There's still a lot of fiddling with full/empty jars, but it's not doing each batch as an entirely separate process.
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Aug 9, 2022 18:56
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City of Glompton posted:apple pie jam sounds dangerously delicious. We did watermelon jelly last year and it is one of the single most delicious things we've ever put up. We did ours with lemongrass. Seriously show stopping look and taste.
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Aug 9, 2022 19:56
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Ahh, when I do multiple batches, I cook the entire batch all at once, and then leave it on low heat until it's ready to be processed. There's still a lot of fiddling with full/empty jars, but it's not doing each batch as an entirely separate process. Three separate types of jam though, because variety! Generally I do like 5 types of jam each year and apple butter, and that is my toast dressing until next season. Last year I got a 5lb box of blueberries and it was all blueberries-ish things. I wish I had people to trade with locally but I am the crazy canning person of our friends group, inflicting salsa, beets and jam on innocents.
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Aug 9, 2022 21:38
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Ah yeah, I generally only need two batches of jam to see me through the year. When I do pickles, the limit on my batch size is how many cuke slices I can fit into my largest mixing bowl for the saline bath step, and with salsa it's limited by the size of my biggest pot for cooking the salsa down. Which is a lot...salsa means a long day in the kitchen, processing all the tomatoes.
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Aug 9, 2022 21:50
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Literally A Person posted:We did watermelon jelly last year and it is one of the single most delicious things we've ever put up. We did ours with lemongrass. Seriously show stopping look and taste. thank you! i am gonna have to try this
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Aug 10, 2022 01:56
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Dunno if this belongs here, since it's fermenting and not canning.
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Aug 10, 2022 08:26
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Salsa I have been buying one of those big boxes (40#?) And marathoning. I tend to eat toast and jam for breakfast most days, so my consumption is pretty high.
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Aug 10, 2022 12:27
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Literally A Person posted:We did watermelon jelly last year and it is one of the single most delicious things we've ever put up. We did ours with lemongrass. Seriously show stopping look and taste. I was looking at that recipe yesterday. Do you wear that on toast? I just couldn’t imagine what I would do with watermelon jelly. Edit: obviously I meant “eat” that on toast. 
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Aug 10, 2022 14:24
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Arkhamina posted:Salsa I have been buying one of those big boxes (40#?) And marathoning. Holy cow. I did 20 pounds last session and that was about at the limits of my endurance. My jam consumption is pretty much just one spoonful a day with my morning yogurt. I go through, I dunno, 7-8 pints a year?
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Aug 10, 2022 14:51
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2020, when some restaurants were looking to dump product, I bought via Facebook Marketplace what was supposed to be 20lbs of tomatillos. Ended up being 34lbs. Bought via Google translate Spanish from a guy with dozens of crates in his garage. Field picked style, so with husks on, a bit of sand. I was SO sick of touching the sticky, sandy fruit by the end. I had SO MUCH salsa Verde!
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Aug 10, 2022 15:46
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His Divine Shadow posted:Dunno if this belongs here, since it's fermenting and not canning. yes it does. looks good! i made cucumber jelly last night. still waiting to see if it sets, i forgot to test it. the bit i saved out tastes good, at least, so if i have to reprocess it will be worth it
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Aug 10, 2022 16:19
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Joburg posted:I was looking at that recipe yesterday. Do you wear that on toast? I just couldn’t imagine what I would do with watermelon jelly. Toast and PB&J. Also a dollop on top of some vanilla ice cream won't make you cry or anything.
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Aug 10, 2022 16:30
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His Divine Shadow posted:Dunno if this belongs here, since it's fermenting and not canning. Fermenting chat has been going on a for a couple years now in this thread, so post away.
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Aug 10, 2022 16:45
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We should probably update the title so people stop asking.
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Aug 10, 2022 17:35
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Fizzing and jamming? A tale of yesterday's produce?
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Aug 11, 2022 20:29
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I have a question, when I made the above I was following a copy cat recipe to try and replicate the McDonalds pickles, which I love. The recipe said to can these in a boiling water bath for 8 minutes. I didn't do that because -If it's supposed to ferment that sounds like it could kill the good bacteria -The lids aren't that well sealed, from my understanding when you ferment stuff like this you don't want a super tight seal because the process causes the creation of gas that needs to release. I looked at some american-russian woman on youtube making this style pickles too and she did not can them and used a jar like mine but without the gasket.
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Aug 12, 2022 10:33
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Not all pickles are fermented. Some are just quick pickles that soak up the brine. If you're going to keep them in the fridge eat them relatively quickly you should be fine. If you want to store them at room temp or for a long time, you should probably do what the recipe says (assuming the recipe is any good).
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Aug 12, 2022 12:24
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TychoCelchuuu posted:Not all pickles are fermented. Some are just quick pickles that soak up the brine. If you're going to keep them in the fridge eat them relatively quickly you should be fine. If you want to store them at room temp or for a long time, you should probably do what the recipe says (assuming the recipe is any good). Well I've seen several fermenting recipes and a lot of them omit the canning. What I have read in one recipe is that they can the pickles after they've fermented. I keep mine on a shelf in the coolest room in the house for the fermentation stage, once they're done I plan to just move them into the fridge. If I moved the pickles into smaller jars I could can them then I guess. I lack a bigass canning pot. The solution now looks cloudy which I read is a good sign.
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Aug 12, 2022 13:39
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