Frankly, internet searches are leaving me confused on this one. Some seems to say this can be done while other say it is not safe. I don’t know enough to proceed.
SWMBO wants to can homegrown tomatoes in cans as salsa, tomato paste, and tomato sauce. We have a Instant Pot.
InfinityCalculator offers a wide range of easy-to-use calculators for finance, health, math, and more, helping you solve problems and make informed decisions effortlessly.
I am not sure if tomatoes are high or low acidic.
Can we do this canning safely? Or must we buy a pressure canner? If we need a pressure canner, what do you recommend?
You can water bath tomatoes and tomato products, you don't need pressure. To be sooper dooper safe we add 2 tbsp of lemon juice to each quart of tomatoes.
If you're serious about canning get a designated pressure canner and use the appropriate vent weights for your elevation. Tomatoes are easy and safe, but low acid vegetables and especially meats need to be canned appropriately to avoid the nasties. Back in the day mom and grandma would can with a pressure cooker and I don't recall any problems, but a pressure canner is the way to go. And get one a little bigger than you think you're going to need.
I had a great link to a university, I think Missouri, for canning, I'll see if I can find it for you.
The Instant Pot doesn't get hot enough to safely do it for most things (according to the Instant Pot website) despite the pressure. I would follow CaptainMike and get a dedicated pressure canner if you are wanting to get serious about canning since you only get to F'up once with canned food..
I did salsa last year in the instant pot.
I'm still here. I used my own recipe, and added a tsp of lemon juice to each jar just to be on the safe side..
here's a video I sorta followed.
Equipment:
'88 Vintage Fire Magic gasser with over 4000 cooks to its credit
Large Big Green Egg
18 Inch Weber Kettle (Rescued from neighbor's trash)
Rotisserie for 18 inch kettle
Dyna Glo propane smoker
Pit Barrel Cooker
Smokey Joe with mini WSM mod
Garcima paella burner
Anova Sous Vide
Slaiya Sous Vide (gift)
LEM grinder, sausage stuffer and meat slicer (all gifts)
I generally consider the "USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning" the authoritative source for canning procedures. I have an older hard copy that I use, but here's a link to a downloadable PDF.
It has a chapter dedicated to procedures for various tomato products and includes procedures for water bath canning as well as various types of pressure canners.
Get a pressure canner. Not with the risk of botulism. Or..... get freezer Tupperware containers and freeze. Or..... put in ziplock bags, lay on cookie sheet and freeze, then remove from bag, and vac seal.
I bought my daughter a 23 qt presto canning pressure cooker last week at Ace Hardware. It has a pressure gauge and weights. I forget how many pints it will hold, but it will hold 7 quart jars. It’s not a high production cooker but works very well. It listed at $159.99.
Alright guys. Thank you so much for the quick and helpful information. I think we have enough information to feel comfortable moving forward with canning the tomatoes using the boiling water method either on the stove or in the IP. The wife is also going to do mint jelly or mint chutney too which can also be done safely with boiling water.
Depending on how this year’s effort goes we may invest in a proper pressure canner for next year. The main plannned use is for tomatoes. We will have to investigate if the pressure canner method offers massive advantages over boiling water in terms of making the process easier since safety is already handled.
For tomatoes the water bath canning is much easier than the pressure cooker. The cool down time to open the pressure cooker adds lots of time to do multiple batches.
Pressure canning won't matter for tomatoes as long as you ensure that they're acidic enough (@captainmike's advice to add lemon juice is solid). The main reason to go pressure is if you can things that cannot be safely done via the water bath as well, you only have to buy and store one canner.
I'm really glad you brought this subject up as we all really need to start thinking about these things. There is so, so much happening that is out of our control, but growing and storing/canning our own food is an essential life skill. I learned from my Depression Era parents and grandparents, and while I never, ever thought something like that could happen again, here we are on the cusp.
Just because my grandmother canned green beans in a water bath canner is not a justification to ignore sound knowledge about food safety that's been learned since then. A huge number of people used to smoke back then too and look how the times have changed about smoking.
To acidify tomatoes per quart --
1/2 tsp citric acid powder
OR
2 TBL commercial lemon juice
OR
4 TBL commercial vinegar
The point of adding acid is to ensure the pH of the finished product is 4.6 or lower.
Or you can use an atmospheric-steam canner (this is NOT the same as a pressure canner). Use the same processing times for an atmospheric-steam canner as you do for a water bath canner.
Or you can use a pressure canner. The pressure canner processes foods at a higher temperature for a shorter time than the other two methods which helps to preserve nutrients and flavor. FOR TOMATOES a pressure canner offers no advantages in terms of food safety, however.
Worked out great so far. Thanks for all of the advice! We didn’t actually use the IP as it was too small for the quart jars. However as we were able to only do 1 jar at a time with the boiling method, we see the advantages of the pressure canner which can do seven at the same time.
I ended up buying the Presto 23 quart pressure canner for $160 from Ace’s Hardware. What was nice is that Chase gave me 5% back through a promo and Ace had a $10 off $50 coupon for my account. So good score. Nothing was available on Craigslist or Facebook. We are using it today to can some spaghetti sauce and it is very good.
If you hunt or fish, be sure to can some meat with it. I've done venison, waterfowl, and a variety of fish. Results have all been fantastic. My canned salmon dip is to die for. 😁
Comment