Canning Sauce

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azfred

Assistant Cook
Joined
Jul 18, 2008
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13
Location
Arizona
if I make a batch of spagetti sauce, can I pressure can it with sausage in the jar or ground meat for that matter?
thanks
 
No, canning (pasteurization) is to kill the "spores" that create the toxins so nothing regrows in the jars while they are sealed. Normal bacteria, mold, yeast and fungi spores can be destroyed with sustained temperatures above 210° F (boiling point is 212° F at sea level) so a Boiling Water Canner is used for a specific time for the density of the food being canned and other factors. This applies to high-acid foods as explained below.

There is an exception. There is one bacteria spore that is NOT killed by the above procedure and that is C. Botulinum spore which creates the Botulism toxin. This spore is heat resistant and temperatures have to go up to 240° F or higher for a sustained period to kill it. That can only be done with a Pressure Canner.

But C. Botulinum does NOT grow toxins in an acidic environment so you are safe with Boiling Water Bath canning for high-acid foods -- assuming the acidic level is high enough. It is therefore only needed for low acid food preservation where there is a chance of Botulinum being present.

Some people then want to use the Pressure Canner for everything just to be "safe", but that over processes many of the foods and turns alot of them to mush. No, you want to follow tested recipes that "processes" the food as little as possible and still be safe.
 
Unfortunately while it used to be perfectly safe to use a hot water bath to can tomatoes because of their acidity today's tomatoes contain much less acid. The result was an outbreak of Botulism (sp?) from some home preserved tomato juice. Not pretty.

So for safety I would pressure can the tomato sauce you describe.
 
That is partially correct. All modern recipes using tomatoes require the addition of bottled lemon juice to guarantee the acidity of the tomatoes is over the safety line. This requirement also applies to any pressure canned recipe.

This is referenced by the recipe in the Ball Blue Book of Preserving, Page 22, which is a Boiling Water Bath.

Again, pressure canning without reason other than "being safer" serves no purpose since you won't have a tested recipe to tell you the time so you can only "guess" which is not being very safe. Fortunately with tomatoes they can be processed either way and there are generally recipes for both methods.

As for the tomato juice poisoning, I would anticipate that no bottled lemon juice was used and most likely not even "canned" and only processed by the older "open kettle" method.
 
would it be that long? everything is cooked already so I only have to kill bacteria , right?

Yes, these times are correct for pressure canning spaghetti sauce with meat. I do it all the time and it's absolutely wonderful.

If you want to can without the meat, then as stated here already, you can do a boiling water bath but include lemon juice. I haven't posted enough times (20 is required) to include a link, but if you go to Google and type in exactly "National Center for Home Food Preservation" and then click on it's site, you'll find a wealth of information.

When canning salsa, you don't need to worry about the PH acidic value and you can boiling water bath because the acidity is so high. Read on in the UGA as I listed above and you'll love what you find.

Wish I could have just posted the link, but it won't let me until I've had 20 posts.
 
When canning salsa, you don't need to worry about the PH acidic value and you can boiling water bath because the acidity is so high. Read on in the UGA as I listed above and you'll love what you find.
Sorry to disagree, but it is quite the opposite for canning salsa. You have a tomato base that is basically neutral acidic and then one adds lots of low-acidic ingredients to that. Only tested and published recipes for salsa should be canned and, yes, the National Center for Home Food Preservation has some good recipes to use.

canning salsa
 
That's what I meant, McNerd :) Because the acidity level is so high in salsa, you are able to BWB it. All the approved recipes for canning Salsa include vinegar or lemon/lime juice, which is what brings the acidity level so high to make it safe for the BWB.

There's nothing better than taking tomatoes from your garden or a farmers market and canning it up. Taking out a jar in the dead of winter and enjoying it. That's the beauty of canning. It still tastes so fresh, like you just made it today, yet you've preserved it with no artificial preservatives like store bought. YUM!
 
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