Posted in Putting Food By
Pack Methods
Many fresh foods contain from 10 to more than 30 percent air. How long canned food retains high quality depends on how much air is removed from food before jars are sealed.
Raw Packing~ is the practice of filling jars tightly with freshly prepared, but unheated, food. Such foods, especially fruit, will float in the jars. The entrapped air in and around the food may cause discoloration with two to three months of storage. Raw-pack styles are more suitable for vegetables processed in a pressure canner.
Hot Packing~ is the practice of heating freshly prepared food to boiling, simmering it three to five minutes, and promptly filling jars loosely with the boiled food. Juice, syrup, or water after added to hot or raw-filled foods should also be heated to boiling before adding to jars. This practice helps to remove air from food, shrinks food, helps keep the food from floating in the jars, and increases vacuum in sealed jars. Hot packing is the best way to remove air and is the preferred pack style for foods processed in a boiling water canner. At first, the color of hot-packed foods may appear to be no better than raw-packed foods, but after a short storage period, both color and flavor of hot-packed food will be superior.
Advantages of hot pack:
-Fewer problems with fruits or tomatoes floating to the top of the jar
-Fewer problems with fruits turning brown near the top of the jar
-Ability to get more food into each jar since heating shrinks foods,but hot food should be packed fairly loosely and not crushed
Advantages of raw pack:
-Foods that tend to lose their shape in cooking are usually easier to handle if they are raw packed
-Takes less time
Acidity of Foods
Whether food should be processed in a pressure or boiling water bath canner to control botulinum bacteria depends on the acidity in food. Acidity may be natural, as in most fruits, or added, as in picked food. Low acid canned foods contain too little acidity to prevent the growth of these bacteria. Acid foods contain enough acidity to block their growth, or destroy them more rapidly when heated. The term "pH" is a measure of acidity level in foods can be increased by adding vinegar, lemon juice, or citric acid.
Acid foods have a pH of 4/6 or lower. They include fruits, pickles, sauerkraut, jams, jellies, marmalades, and fruit butters. Although tomatoes usually are considered acid food, some are now known to have pH values slightly above 4/6. Therefore, if they are to be canned as acid foods, these products must be acidified to a pH of 4.6 or lower with lemon juice or citric acid. Properly acidified tomatoes are safely processed in a boiling water canner.
Do you remember (you older gals might) when as girls, you would go out into the garden (at least I did:-) with a little salt shaker and eat tomatoes right off the ground. Remember how nice and strong the acid taste was in your mouth...alot of today's tomatoes are not as they were in those days. You can barely TASTE them. Sadly, that is why I rarely if at all buy tomatoes in the grocery store, they taste like plastic nothings. So I just bid my time until I plant my own in the garden.
When planning your tomato harvest, I would ask my local seed/plant greenhouse/distributor about those that grow the highest acid type of tomatoes...either way make sure your acid level is correct when usimg a boiling water canner. When in doubt make the best decision for your family. Here again, no fear, but learning and using wisdom. Remember if you live where a garden is out of the question, but LOVE tomatoes, you can grow lots in pots!! Make sure they get LOTS of good hot sunshine. They love that! Oh! and do not water unless it is early morn or late day so as not to burn the plant. Enjoy!
Peggy and her husband John, along with 6 children (ranging from young adult through four years) live along the Appalachian mountains range in Pa. Peggy enjoys mentoring women in home things. She has just introduced a new monthly e-zine entitled, "The Simple Woman's Gazette". You can find a FREE Sample and subscription information at this link
You can also find Peggy's archived articles and devotionals at Home Made Simplicity and lots of basic canning information at her food preserving blog, The Simple Woman's Cannery.
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http://www.homesteadblogger.com/HomeMadeSimplicity/ (Home Things)
http://www.homesteadblogger.com/asimplewomanscannery/ (Canning Basics)
