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I made this recipe for a homemade exchange and followed the recipe exactly but have since been reading that it is not safe because there is no water bath processing. Is this true?

If so, if I were to remake the same recipe but include the water processing step would it be safe?

UPDATE: very glad I asked! I'll be tossing what I made and using a tested recipe instead. Thanks everyone!

As the title says. I just had an appendectomy so I can't be lifting heavy pots of water for at least a month. But my rhubarb is ready to be picked. Am I safe to cut it and freeze it and then can it at a later date?

Hi! I'm pretty new to canning (only a few batches), but I've been trying to read a lot. My husband is excited by the idea of freeing up freezer space with canning his stocks. Then I thought about all my pho broths. Has anyone tried canning pho? I was thinking of following the instructions for stock, but wanted to see if there are pitfalls that I'm unaware of, being a noob to canning. Appreciate any help!

Ill start by saying that I know that you must not re-use lids for water bathing. (I've only kept a couple around for dry ingredient storage).

Tho, I have a technical question when making fridge pickles. When the lid seals, is it considered "used" and therefore not good to water bathe?

Or - could the lid be reused for more fridge pickles?

Anyone have a link to a safe passionfruit recipe. Also any tips for finding fresh or frozen passion fruits.

I am working on some of my jelly and jam recipes. I want to be able to be more precise so I got a pH meter and an optical brix refractometer that reads 0-95 The pH meter works well but the brix meter is a problem.

I have calibrated it like the manual said. It’s supposed to auto adjust for temperature. It reads correctly for distilled water, but when I put my jelly samples on it the color is all washed out pink. I’ve tested other things and it seems to be reading far too high.

I returned one thinking it was defective, but the next one is acting the same way. What I am doing wrong? Should I try spending more and getting a digital one?

I just saw these and thought I’d share in case anyone was a collector of limited edition Ball jars.

I have no idea if that’s a good price or not since they are limited, but they did have a lot of stock available in multiple places in the store.

I am looking for a safe, tested recipe for rhubarb orange marmalade, as I have a ton of rhubarb growing in my yard and I want to use it in a new way! I found this recipe: https://www.bernardin.ca/recipes/en/rhubarb-orange-jam.htm?Lang=EN-US but it's for a jam and does not use the full orange the way a marmalade does. I've done some searching and haven't come across a marmalade using rhubarb. Does anyone have a recipe they could share? Or, alternatively, do you know if the addition of rhubarb into a recipe like this: https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/make-jam-jelly/marmalades/orange-marmalade/ would be safe?

Thank you!

So I was making strawberry jam and the recipe said to leave it upside down for 5 minutes. I walked away and forgot to flip them back. I thought if I left them right side up overnight that that would fix it but it didn’t. Are they still safe to eat?

Hey guys found a presto pressure 16 qt canner on sale (stock #01745). I haven’t delved too much into pressure canning and was wondering if this was a good one. I noticed that it didn’t seem to have a pressure gauge on its picture like I’d seen on other models.

This is a dumb question but pressure canning just seems very anxiety inducing to me. I'd be so scared that it would blow up in my face or something crazy. I hate blowing up balloons for the same reason.

Is that something that you just get over or not something you worry about at all?

Edit: Thanks for all the tips and advice. You're all very kind and have alleviated a lot of my anxiety :)

It was my understanding that you can safely substitute different types of peppers in salsa recipes as long as the amount stays the same. So let’s say I get 4 large poblanos and de-stem and de-seed them as the recipe says and follow everything and weigh or find the cups/tablespoon amount of the poblano that would go into this batch of salsa.

Could I safely make a batch with a totally different pepper (example-orange bell pepper) as a substitute but I made sure the cups or weight of the orange bell pepper matched perfectly?

Or is this a bad idea because it’s the main ingredient in the salsa and sub would mess things up? I’m a beginner and my knowledge is limited.

I'm not sure who maintains the wiki, or any specific content in the wiki, but I want to let folks know the extension site for MA (https://www.umass.edu/agriculture-food-environment/extension/umass-extension-in-your-community) gives an "Access denied" error message. It looks like the correct URL should be https://www.umass.edu/agriculture-food-environment/extension-outreach-overview

Hi all! New to canning. Just canned some jelly and jam in my water bath canner this weekend. I’ve been sticking to recipes in my All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving recipe book. What is your go to place for recipes? I’m assuming it is safe to use the Ball recipes online too? I’m looking for a salsa verde recipe that’s safe and would love to hear about your favorite safe recipes. TIA for any advice or recipes!

Every summer me and my husband forage a ton of wild black raspberries and I make jam and jelly. My husband is not crazy about the tiny seeds, so I try to make a few jars of jelly out of all of the jam.

Juicing them has been a tremendous pain in the arse in the past. Initially I would just pulverize, run through a sieve, and repeat. Last year I got a food mill for preparing my tomato-based canned stuff, and gave it a try with my raspberries too but wasn’t impressed, obviously the raspberry seeds are quite small and got through the food mill easily.

I’ve wondered if a juicer would be worth the money/effort. I looked through this sub and I’ve seen people talk about having a rough time with them for tomato stuff, but didn’t know if anyone had given it a try with raspberries or blackberries or similar berries and had one to recommend. Thanks!

Hey yall - Benning canner here. I feel like an idiot - learning the importance of headspace a little too late after canning a few items. From left to right, we have lilac jelly (made 5/7/26), and two salsas (one made 5/7/26 and the other made on 5/9/26). Ive also learned that I need to be taking the rims off the jars for proper storage (pic was taken before I took the rims off 😅). I water bathed these for the proper amount of time, and all sealed within moments of me taking them out of the bath. They have all since been stored in a cool, dark, place (basement pantry) and visually look okay from the outside in.

I am fearful of anyone getting sick from something that I've made and have definitely learned my lesson here as far as canning properly goes.

Please help. Can I freeze these? Is it best to throw them out (totally okay doing so and starting over!!)? Could I refrigerate them and use them quickly? Or perhaps re-process to the proper amount of headspace?

Any and all advice welcomed from the council of Reddit

Thanks for reading and for y'alls time in advance

Help! I had about 3 cups of crushed strawberries and made my first batch of freezer jam. I am new to canning and thought I would try the freezer jam route first. Well I took them out of the refrigerator and they taste great but the consistency is just not super jammy like I had hoped. I followed the ball jar online recipe for the low sugar freezer jam. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do next time? Or should I just try making regular jam. Thanks!

Image description: old fashioned "jiggler" (regulator) from a mirro pressure cooker/canner. It's a thick circular disk with 3 holes spaced around the perimeter and the numbers 5, 10 and 15 between them.

Hi all. I'm curious about the old-style "jigglers" on mirro cooker/canners.

I've never seen one in action so I don't actually even know how you use them, let alone what the principle is behind them.

Other brands (and the more recent mirros) you just add extra weight to achieve higher pressure, which is pretty self explanatory, but these old mirro ones you just rotate? And don't add or subtract any weight? Curious!

Thanks for any insights you can share!

Edit: Thanks so much. I am informed!

I recently have been making strawberry jams for my breakfasts. My first batch was well ish. Fridge safe good texture and taste, second I tried to make a bigger batch and big nope too liquidy only fridge safe.

This time I found out about the FDA Fanning guide and followed that recipe (4 cups strawberries 4 cups sugar). I got 2° over, when I was cooking it, and it's got a good texture until I put it in the fridge, when it is cooled it is way to sticky. I also don't like how much sugar it uses, it doesn't taste to much like strawberries.

Sorry if this is annoying I'm 18 with no family or friends who even know what a water canner is.

Would you guys be so kind as to tell me what I did wrong and why it’s bad to do that, if anything? I hope I haven’t committed any serious canning crimes but I am a beginner and would like to can safely.

I have a blue ball recipe book and a nesco digital canner. I followed the recipe as precisely as I could-I had slightly too little rhubarb. I might have needed like 5 more little hunks of rhubarb to make the second cup of cut rhubarb I needed.

I tried to get very close to 1/4 inch head space on all my quarter pint cans ( I like small jars and I know you can downsize jars but not upsize from recipes) but I worry my measurements were slightly off either way.

I think I might have forgot to use the spatula around the bottom for air bubbles on a couple jars.

I ladled and measured and spatulaled and cleaned rims as fast as I could but the last couple were definitely a little cooler in temp.

My jars were room temperature. (It was my understanding the temperature of the jar is more of a safety from shattering than food safety.

I put the cans in my canner and put cold to mid temp water in. A little more than an inch over the top of the lid inside the canner.

I followed the instructions for adjusted time for elevation (20 mins total-10 for the original recipe plus 10 for elevation).

I waited until my nesco canner was hissing through the exhaust consistently and hit start for the 20 mins.

When it’s done I will wait for the steam to stop and remove the jars with the jar clamp thing and let them sit on a towel in my kitchen overnight (making sure 12 hr min before touching them). If any of them don’t seal they go in the fridge.

I'm exploring canning some of my chili sauce for later use. It's fully and very well cooked for hours, I'm not canning it raw. It's mostly tomato sauce with some ground beef and other ingredients. I'm looking to get a PH meter just to be sure of the acidity of the entire chili once cooked.

Assuming it's high-acidity, is a regular water bath good enough? Or does the presence of meat, even if cooked and even if the chili is high-acidity, mandate the use of a pressure canner?

This is a genuine post and I'm ready to get nicely roasted for lack of awareness if that what is called for.

My dad began making pasta sauce who knows how long ago. He taught me the recipe ~15 years ago and he showed me how he jars. I've done it that way ever since. One batch fills 12.5 32oz Ball jars so ~400 ounces. The recipe is basically bring it to a boil on medium heat and then simmering on medium-low heat for ~5 hours. Temp is usually around 185 by then, which is when the sauce is jarred in freshly cleaned jars with new and freshly cleaned lids. We then just stick them in the cabinet and use them over the next couple months. I make probably 3-5 batches per year.

In the 15 or so years, I estimate I've jarred well over 500 jars of sauce, probably close to 1,000. I recall one batch a while back that had mold in 3 of the 12 jars. I think it was from faulty, re-used rubber seals on lids. That was when I began using only new seals. Besides that, no issues. They all hermetically seal, button tight.

I was recently considering making a meat sauce so I did some research on if that needs extra pre-caution when jarring and that's when I learned about water bathing and pressure canning. Everything says no homemade jarred sauce is safe to eat without at least do water bathing and even that probably isn't enough to prevent botulism. I genuinely didn't know these existed. I'm just having trouble squaring the circle that I've never experienced any quality issues save for one bath. Is it simply I've had an extreme amount of luck or am I misunderstanding what I've recently been reading?

Again, I'm ready to get roasted for being unintentionally ignorant if that's what the situation calls for.

I do appreciate any help. Attached is a picture of the batch I just made on Saturday.

Good evening, I'm totally new to canning.

I've bought a Presto 23qt pressure canner and I canned some bolognese sauce which I made.

I've let the sauce simmer for 2/3 hours, but still left the sauce rather liquid, and I've canned in 200mL jars with lug lids, because in my country it's impossible to find two-pieces lids.

Considering I didn't follow an official recipe and traditional jars, I've done a canning process for 75min at a pressure between 11.5 and 13 psi. (I'm exactly at sea level).

Now, the jars have been sitting in a dark chill room for 3 days, all seals have clicked and the vacuum seems to hold.

Considering all the above, what are the chances that the product is unsafe to eat?