How long do i have to eat these?
My altitude is at 4439 ft. I only added 5 minutes to the processing time, probably should've done 10.
The liquid and fruit also separated pretty bad, i assume from the tomatoes not being hot enough when jarring.
Lastly, we had clear signs of siphoning, tainted water color in my water bath canner and sticky jars since theyve cooled, two of them definitely look like theyve lost some liquid.
Jars seem sealed, the lids popped and i can pick up the jars from the lids without issue.
Im brand new to canning, so i knew i would make mistakes here and there but i am annoyed honestly, but its my bad.
I followed the recipe for canning whole tomatos in their own juice from the all new ball book of canning and preserving, each qt has 2 tbsp lemon juice.
TIA for any feedback!
Attached is a photo of 3 qts of canned tomatoes, they look bubby because i had just tipped them upsidedown briefly in an effort to mix the juice back in (didnt work)
And another photo of the rag they cooled on overnight, with tomato juice stains.
by DaWeazl
8 Comments
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If you are concerned your canning process was compromised, just treat it as you would an opened jar of tomatoes. So maybe 4-5 days in the refrigerator .
You can prevent fruit float by cooking the tomatoes just a little bit before canning. Maybe a half hour or so of simmering and stirring in a pot. It breaks down enzymes or some shit.
If you raw pack tomatoes always separate like this. It’s completely normal, safe and expected.
Siphoning is normal. Tomatoes separating or fruit floating is normal. I can’t speak for the altitude thing, but if you follow the guidelines you are fine.
Wash them up and shelve them.
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If you’re unsure, you can salvage the tomatoes by freezing them.
All this is normal. As long as your seals are good they should be fine.
When we can “slicer” tomatoes, the separation always happens.
Like somebody else said in the thread, pre cooking your tomatoes will help. You will still get a lot of liquid out of them but you will be able to keep that liquid in the pan and out of your canning jars.
If you use a paste tomato, like a Roma, you won’t have the separation issue (at least not as bad).
Half of the tomatoes we plant are Roma tomatoes and we use them almost exclusively for canning.
I’m sorry you had issues with your canning process. You might want to look into purchasing a pressure canning setup (to ensure they’re safely and properly preserved).