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Looks lovely! Is that one of the pickl-it jars? Merry Christmas picklers and jammers!
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Dec 25, 2017 18:00
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POOL IS CLOSED posted:Looks lovely! Is that one of the pickl-it jars? I believe the phrase is "Have a Jammin' Get it? X-mas." But only if you're an insufferable douche. Like me. HAVE A JAMMIN' CHRISTMAS!!!!
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Dec 27, 2017 00:13
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I'm starting to hot water can marmalades. I accidentally bought Freezer Pectin. The ingredients are the same as regular pectin. Can I use it for cooked jams or will they not work the same?
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Jan 7, 2018 12:04
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For reasons unknown to me, I have been posting my canning adventures in the Pressure Cooking thread for a month and everyone just awkwardly accepted them without pointing me over here. Hola!   My first experiment: Pear Cranberry jam with winter warming spices. A bit chunky. Last Week (not pictured): Apple Butter which wasn't quite thick enough to be butter, so I boiled it down *again* for long rear end time and it still isn't butter but is tasty AF.  Tonights venture: 3L of Strawberry Applesauce and 1.5L of Strawberry Balsamic Jelly. Jars in the back are grandma's old stash from the 1940's.  The potential bomb I'm using for all of this, haven't run it as a pressure vessel yet but hopefully it won't explode. Also circa 1939-ish, new top hardware. Overall this is a really fun and delicious hobby and my friends are loving the free botulism I keep handing out every week. 
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Jan 22, 2018 06:58
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That Pear/Cranberry jam looks great, are you adding any extra pectin? or does the cranberry/pear provide enough by themselves to set it?
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Jan 24, 2018 00:52
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Way more than enough in the pears naturally, it was seting before the jars had even cooled. (recipe came from FoodInJars). Should have mashed it a bit, though, it's ultra-chunky. Strawberry could have done boiling a bit longer, in contrast, it required a pack of Pectin and took about 48 hours of sitting around to firm up in the jars.
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Jan 24, 2018 00:57
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Think there's nothing to preserve in spring?  Dehydrator loaded with fresh picked morels. I walk out my back door into the forest that surrounds the house to find these. 
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May 12, 2018 17:32
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Meanwhile in California we're already getting cucumbers, which means it's time to make pickles! I like to make mine sweet-hot. Here's what I sieved out of the pickling juice:  That's two heads of garlic, eight habanero chilis, and a quarter-cup of premixed pickling spice. I made way too much pickling juice and have nearly four cups left over; any recommendations what I do with it, besides make fridge pickles? Is there some clever alternate use for the stuff, is what I'm getting at.
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May 13, 2018 20:07
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I wish I knew where all the New England mushroom hunters go to get their wild mushrooms... But this year, I've got ramps. e: there's a pickle juice and whiskey drink that's alright POOL IS CLOSED fucked around with this message at 01:08 on May 14, 2018 |
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May 13, 2018 20:45
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:any recommendations what I do with it, besides make fridge pickles? Is there some clever alternate use for the stuff, is what I'm getting at. Brining chicken.
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May 14, 2018 01:00
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Ranter posted:Brining chicken. Listen to this poster. Pro-tier.
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May 14, 2018 05:27
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Oh rad, canning thread! I've been meaning to learn to can for ages, and I think this is the year that I'm going to do something about it. This thread has given me some excellent things to think about. Also, if anybody is interested in fermentation jars like this one: ... you should be able to get the jar, the airlock, and a grommet at your local homebrew shop for like $5 or less out the door. The jar looks exactly like the ones that my LHBS sells liquid malt extract in. You might have to drill a hole in the lid, but that's pretty easy.
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May 18, 2018 23:19
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Eh, this is good enough for memorial day weekend sausage party
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May 20, 2018 02:41
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Looking good. What do you do for pickling juice? My current recipe is 3 cups 5% white vinegar, 1 cup water, 1-2 cups sugar, 2tbsp premixed pickling spice, and 4 habanero chilis. I sieve out the spices and chilis from the liquids before canning, mostly because it's more convenient that way.
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May 20, 2018 03:11
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Looking good. What do you do for pickling juice? So I'm on a low sugar/carb diet and CUPS of sugar blows my mind. For these I made 2 cups filtered water, 2 cups white vinegar 5%, 1 tablespoon sugar, 2 tablespoons salt, tons of mustard mustard seeds, fresh dill on bottom on top. No dill for the sweet peppers, I always make too much brine to play it safe for the cucumbers and today the leftover went on those.
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May 20, 2018 03:19
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Ranter posted:So I'm on a low sugar/carb diet and CUPS of sugar blows my mind.  Now, when I make jam, the sugar in those is all destined to be eaten. And I use less sugar.quote:For these I made 2 cups filtered water, 2 cups white vinegar 5%, 1 tablespoon sugar, 2 tablespoons salt, tons of mustard mustard seeds, fresh dill on bottom on top. No dill for the sweet peppers, I always make too much brine to play it safe for the cucumbers and today the leftover went on those. Neat, so your only spices are dill and mustard? I've tried making dill pickles in the past, but I always got the dosage wrong and ended up with pickles that tasted enormously of dill and basically nothing else. They weren't very pleasant to eat.
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May 20, 2018 04:00
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Just use a couple heads of dill - like one or two each of flowering and immature seed heads - for a batch if you do fermented cuke pickles. I love pickling spices! What do you all put in yours? I use black peppercorns, dried tien tsin peppers, broken Ceylon cinnamon sticks, whole allspice, coriander seeds, broken bay leaves, and whole cloves. Sometimes I add some extra stuff, usually fresh herbs, depending on what I'm making. Tarragon and basil in particular seem to work really well in my fermented stuff.
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May 21, 2018 21:09
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Gentlegoons, I am in search of a recipe. Last week at the family Memorial Day weekend cookout, an in-law brought one tiny jar of asparagus salsa. It was phenomenal, and with asparagus currently in season and available at every farm market and fruit stand, I bought a large quantity to make this salsa. Does anyone have a favorite recipe they could share?
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Jun 3, 2018 14:13
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Hate to ask but any good recipes for dill pickles? I’m new to the thread.
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Jun 3, 2018 22:17
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Piggy Smalls posted:Hate to ask but any good recipes for dill pickles? I’m new to the thread. Here's my go-to for kosher dills that's a good, easy place to start: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/08/garlic-dill-pickles.html I like that particular ratio of vinegar:water:salt. Once you get that down, it's really up to you what flavorings you want to add. I prefer to use fresh dill (heads that have gone to seed, the fronds won't do much in canned pickles), sometimes supplemented with dill seed, plus a couple cloves of smashed garlic, red pepper flakes or fresh hot pepper of your choice, and some yellow mustard seed. Some people like pickling spice, some don't. Try some jars with and some without if you're not sure. And as far as I'm concerned, you can't have too much dill in there. I tend to pickle cukes in spears, or if I get the really tiny ones then whole. If you have a sous-vide circulator, or a good thermometer and a lot of patience, you can do the low and slow method of canning. It's 180-185 F for 30 minutes. It keeps your cukes super crispy without using calcium chloride, especially when you can in spears or chips. I highly recommend that method. (And yes it's safe https://extension2.missouri.edu/gh1457)
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Jun 6, 2018 02:58
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Canning jars are on sale at almost every supermarket near me. Might be worth checking out near you if you need some new ones.
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Jun 15, 2018 21:30
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Does anyone know of any resources that get into the science of canning and exactly what prevents the food from going bad? My understanding is basically that the hot water bath kills off most of the things that would normally grow in the food -- it's not quite sterile, but near enough. And then the food itself is made acidic and hygroscopic enough that botulinum spores can't grow, with the latter being done by boiling away excess moisture, and by adding sugar. I assume someone's done the research on exactly how acidity and quantity of sugar correlate with count of remaining botulinum spores, and I'd love to see the data. The practical application of this is that I'd rather have tart, over-acidic jam than jam that has five freakin' pounds of sugar added to it, if such could be done safely. None of the recipes I see online ever call for what I'd consider to be a sane amount of sweetener in terms of flavor, but I don't know if that's because that's what's required to make the food safe, or if it's because they're targeting the average American palate.
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Jun 22, 2018 16:17
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Does anyone know of any resources that get into the science of canning and exactly what prevents the food from going bad? My understanding is basically that the hot water bath kills off most of the things that would normally grow in the food -- it's not quite sterile, but near enough. And then the food itself is made acidic and hygroscopic enough that botulinum spores can't grow, with the latter being done by boiling away excess moisture, and by adding sugar. I assume someone's done the research on exactly how acidity and quantity of sugar correlate with count of remaining botulinum spores, and I'd love to see the data. Isn't this basically the question of what must be pressure canned versus what's safe for hot water bath? Low acid foods need to be pressure canned in order to prevent botulism, but it seems like that's the opposite of your problem. As for hard data, I don't have any studies to show you but I think you're basically just talking about Pasteurization. I don't know if sugar content and botulism are related, I think it's more about acid content but I'm just some rear end in a top hat on the internet who isn't an expert.
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Jun 22, 2018 19:10
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Does anyone know of any resources that get into the science of canning and exactly what prevents the food from going bad? My understanding is basically that the hot water bath kills off most of the things that would normally grow in the food -- it's not quite sterile, but near enough. And then the food itself is made acidic and hygroscopic enough that botulinum spores can't grow, with the latter being done by boiling away excess moisture, and by adding sugar. I assume someone's done the research on exactly how acidity and quantity of sugar correlate with count of remaining botulinum spores, and I'd love to see the data. If you have any friends with a food science and technology degree those would be the folks to ask. Maybe look into a textbook.
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Jun 22, 2018 19:13
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I know this isn't specifically what you were talking about but maybe this would be a good start: https://extension.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/documents/8836/sp50464analyzingpicklerecipes.pdf Here in Oregon we have the OSU extension offices that have a bunch of this information and classes and such. Do you have any resources around you like that? Most agriculture schools have some kind of programs for home preserving and food science.
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Jun 22, 2018 19:17
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A Pack of Kobolds posted:Isn't this basically the question of what must be pressure canned versus what's safe for hot water bath? Low acid foods need to be pressure canned in order to prevent botulism, but it seems like that's the opposite of your problem. I guess the fundamental question I have is whether the sugar is necessary for safe canning (with a hot water bath) or whether you can get away with just making it sufficiently acidic. I can believe that a very sugary environment would have some antimicrobial properties: all the ambient sugar would suck any moisture out of the bacteria, preventing them from being able to do anything. But the jam recipes I see call for IMO ridiculous quantities of sugar, while e.g. pickling recipes just say "use a few cups of 5% acidic vinegar and some water and it'll be fine", no mention of sugar at all. Ideally I'd like to see a study saying "we varied acidity and sugar content, then compared quantity of bacteria found after X amount of time of the jars sitting on a shelf." Literally A Person posted:I know this isn't specifically what you were talking about but maybe this would be a good start: Thanks for the suggestion, seems worth checking out. The main takeaway from that PDF is they recommend at most as much water as there is vinegar, using at least 5% acid vinegar. In other words, you can't have a less than 2.5% acidic solution, for pickles. What that means in terms of pH I don't know. Unfortunately, I'm in the SF Bay Area; I'm pretty sure there aren't any conveniently nearby ag schools. It's nothing but cities, suburbia, and water for an hour's drive in any direction.
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Jun 22, 2018 19:30
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Thanks for the suggestion, seems worth checking out. The main takeaway from that PDF is they recommend at most as much water as there is vinegar, using at least 5% acid vinegar. In other words, you can't have a less than 2.5% acidic solution, for pickles. What that means in terms of pH I don't know. OSU is pretty online-y as far as things go. I'd check out and see if they offer any of their food sci and tech extension courses online. They are an incredible school for this kind of poo poo and are seriously responsible for like 60% of the varietals grown in the PNW. Pretty cool joint for this stuff. Warning though, this is the kind of thing that would typically involve lab classes so online might be out in general.
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Jun 22, 2018 19:38
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Check university of Georgia too.
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Jun 22, 2018 19:44
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Wrong thread
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Jun 23, 2018 02:02
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She might be... in a jam. A bit of a pickle, you could say.
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Jun 23, 2018 02:04
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POOL IS CLOSED posted:She might be... in a jam. A bit of a pickle, you could say. It's very possible. I am not a canning scientist, but the things I learned over the years of preserving food is some foods have higher acid and can be safely canned using a water bath. Other foods like most vegetables, meats, etc need to be pressure canned. The one thing we can't do in home canning like commercial canning is safely process solid-pack foods. Things like pureed pumpkin, etc. Your home stove can't get hot enough. The main things to remember are using enough heat to kill the bacteria that can kill you in the food, and using a canning method that will allow you to safely leave food on the shelf for up to a year, or more. It's important to keep up to date on canning methods. Technology and equipment have improved over time. My mother still preserves jelly and jam with paraffin wax. You can still buy blocks of Gulf Wax in the canning section of the supermarket. I don't do it, because I can remember pulling the wax off jam only to find a layer of mold growing under the wax because it didn't lock out all the air when it hardened. I can my jams and jellies and I don't have an issue with spoilage. Sure Jell pectin has a variety where you can make jams and jellies with reduced sugar. I make the sugar-free recipes and they taste good. Set is a little softer, so it comes out more like a spread.
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Jun 23, 2018 02:16
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Pretty much 100% of my jams end up getting mixed with yogurt, so I don't care about soft sets. I just want to have confidence that I'm not sabotaging my safety in pursuit of a flavor that isn't cloyingly sweet. I'll happily add a cup of lemon juice to the mix if that's what it takes to keep botulinum under control.
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Jun 23, 2018 03:37
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 Here's some lovely giardiniera (still delicious). I got pretty curious about pickling after watching the Bon Appetit youtube series on fermentation - anyone been been watching this thing? I'm curious to hear how good the guy's practices are from people who know what they're doing. He makes it look very easy but doesn't show much in the way of sterilization prep so I'm guessing his stuff has a fairly short shelf life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPvLA-egmWA
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Jun 25, 2018 12:03
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Brad can do no wrong. Seriously though, fermentation is pretty forgiving. Wash your containers/lids/etc with warm soapy water, use freshly harvested veggies, brine to your liking but 3% is pretty good for most things. If you ferment at warmer temps you can get some harmless yeast (called Kahm yeast) that can be removed. After the ferment gets going, put it in a cooler place to avoid that. Definitely helps to use an airlock of some kind that will keep the ferment anaerobic. Fermentation isn't canning - you usually store it in the fridge eventually.
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Jun 28, 2018 03:06
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Brad is bae but just because he makes it look easy on the videos doesn't mean it's always easy (I feel like maybe he even said that in one or two of the videos...?). See for instance his Instagram.
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Jun 28, 2018 06:20
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I think I finally figured out how to properly pack pickles for processing. My peach game, however, is still weak. drat jars are like half syrup.
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Jul 10, 2018 15:13
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I usually do my pickles as circular slices, so I can use them in sandwiches. But no matter what I do there's always a few that poke up above the pickling juice once they're in the jar. It doesn't seem to hurt anything, but it bugs me. I guess I need denser cucumbers. 
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Jul 10, 2018 15:26
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I usually do my pickles as circular slices, so I can use them in sandwiches. But no matter what I do there's always a few that poke up above the pickling juice once they're in the jar. It doesn't seem to hurt anything, but it bugs me. I guess I need denser cucumbers. That will always happen, unless you purposely use fewers cukes, because some of the brine will seep from the jar during processing. (That is, assuming you're measuring the head space, which you should be)
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Jul 10, 2018 19:35
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I'm making a nice batch of full sour cukes again. It's farting along happily in the pickle crock. That little blop! of a bubble rising through the water seal is a happy sound.
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Jul 10, 2018 19:42
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Crusty Nutsack posted:That will always happen, unless you purposely use fewers cukes, because some of the brine will seep from the jar during processing. (That is, assuming you're measuring the head space, which you should be) Just to double-check -- are you saying I should purposely use fewer cukes, or that it's not harmful to have a few sticking above the juice? I mean, if it's safe, I'd rather fit more into the jar.
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Jul 10, 2018 20:26
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