I love to can my own tomatoes! For many years I have done this as I like the freshest tomatoes you can find to cook with. I also like to find bargain tomatoes that have been marked down to a cheaper price. They will have some spots on them but that”s ok and at 50 cents a pound that’s good for me!
Fill up your sink with water and wash all the sand off the tomatoes. While you are doing that job you could have a medium to large pot of boiling water only half-full. Gently fill pot with about 6 tomatoes or more if they fit.
Watch for the skin to crack open on the tomatoes maybe 3-5 minutes. Take them out and replace with more in the pot if you have more. I keep these in my kitchen sink to cool down so I can handle them. When cool you cut out any bad spots on tomato and use a fruit corer for the core or a little knife to cut core out. The skins will slide off.
I have my pressure canner with the water level mark filled with water on the stove on medium heat with a dash of vinegar added to the pot so you don’t have calcium buildup on your lovely finished product. I also have had my pint jars cleaned up and ready with the lids and rings beside them on the counter. I have a long chopstick for air bubbles and a tiny container with vinegar in it along with some napkins ready for wiping the tops of the jar before they get the seal and band put on them.
It helps to have everything ready at hand. You will also need your heavy duty jar lifter and a folded towel rifht beside the stove to put the jars on when done as they are hot and heavy.
Your tomatoes should still be warm or if you refrigerated then for the next day’ then heat them back up. They need to be warm and so does the water in your canner to match each other. I have warm to hot water in about 4 of my jars and as I fill one I pour water into an empty jar.
You will need a wide mouth funnel (which I forgot) to tell you to have ready. And a soup ladle dipper. I have my pot in the sink and jars on the counter o fill. I put a dash of accent or salt in each jar before I ladle in tomatoes with juice and them fill to 1 inch of the top of the jar while leaving that 1 inch headspace unfilled. If they need more liquid you can add water.
Next I de-bubble each jar with my chopstick or whatever you have to use,Now dip a napkin in vinegar and wipe jar rim very well. Time to put on the seal and next comes the ring. Only finger tight that band on jar,Do not crank down as tight as you ca!
Now these are ready to be put in the canner. If you have an empty space in pot you just fill a jar with hot water and put lid on and add to the pot so that jars will not rock around and break.
Time to put the lid on the canner now. Have heat set on #7′ there is no hurring this.But leave the toggle weight off until you have seen and felt lots of stem coming out of the toggle fitting on top of the pot.Now put on the toggle weight and wait until you see the pressure gauge rise up to 10 lbs of pressure reading. (If gauge does not rise from 0 after 15 minutes then turn off stove and cool down for an hour and then lift lid while checking rubber seal and all vents(use toothpick ) to clean vents well. Put lid back on and restart your steam coming out and back to the putting toggle on and seeing rise to 10 lbs of pressure.
This is a pain but rarely happens. Safety comes first though! When you see 10 lbs of pressure holding up)set timer) for 15 minutes for pints or quarts. Ok, now you have to keep watching the pressure dial so that it will not keep climbing higher and higher. I usually turn my stove knob from #7 down to #3 and keep watching for it to hover at 10 pounds of pressure. Be glad this is only 15 minutes!
When your timer goes off you turn off the stove and come back an hour later when pressure is at ZERO. Now you open the pot with the lid faceing away from you as there is hot steam in there. Take your jar lifter and take out each jar and set on a towel right beside the stove. You will soon hear the pinging sound as each jar seals! Then I take the bands off of the jars and wash and put away for next time.
You are now a canner! I hope that you always can and preserve food and please pass it down to many others! They can come to this site and view it for instructions on many things anytime they wish. I get tickled as punch when my views go up in number so please do share my webpage around https:www.wisdomforpennies.com! Hugs and love from me to you! #Tomato #Canning
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