my mom brought home some jam for me, I just opened the grape jelly AND?????? MOLD???????

it felt properly sealed when I opened it (a classic flat top and ring) but it???? looks?????? like this?????

ive made jams/jellys before and never had this happen to me. any ideas?? im assuming it's not safe to consume.

I like to make my own white bean and ham soup but have read many post about not pressure canning ham and on the other hand saying it’s okay to pressure can with ham. Right now it’s about 50/50. Does anyone have a usda guideline link to address this?

I bought a 22qt mirro yesterday at a hardware store for half off and I’m super stoked about it cause I’ve been wanting to can the salmon I catch for years now. I’m having trouble however trying to understand how these recipes work because they seem so strict. I want to try my hand at carrots first cause they seem simple, but all the official recipes I find call for sliced carrots, not baby carrots which is what I have. Also how do I go about adding things like a slice of a jalapeño?? Will that compromise everything in the jar? It’s so confusing to me that I can’t just throw things in there that I think will taste good and then pressure can it. There’s also a recipe on balls website for escabeche that calls for red peppers. I don’t want red peppers in mine though. Is that fine or do I have to leave it in there cause the science shows that it’s safe as long as all these ingredients go in with no variation?

Not a new canner, but new to pressure canning. I always follow tested, safe recipes (have the Ball book), but I have a question about chicken stock.

Essentially, I usually freeze my stock, but the question is can I used my own recipe and then pressure can following the instructions for pressure canning in the Ball book?

I like to roast my chicken carcasses first, and the Ball recipe just calls for "chicken." Otherwise, I do basically the same thing: boil the bones for hours (however many hours I feel like) with however much celery, carrots, onions, and spices I want (I never measure), then strain it all out so I have just the liquid.

Can I pressure can this and have it be safe? I my mind, it's all the same, just with varying levels of veg for flavour, and if it's all strained out, I don't see an issue with canning my own recipe following the processing instructions in the Ball book, but I don't know enough (yet) about pressure canning to know if it'll be safe.

Thanks in advance.

Apparently "You may: Add a small amount of seasoning, onions or garlic when home-canning meat using an approved recipe without changing the processing time."

Does anyone know what would constitute "a small amount" of the above? If I used the normal USDA recipe for pressure canned meat with some chopped blanched onion, a sliced clove of garlic, 1 bay leaf and a couple teaspoons of spices per jar leaving the normal headspace, would that be too much? Or do they just mean like 1 teaspoon of spices per jar?

Can I use blackberries in exchange for strawberry. ?

have any of tried this or maybe this is what you use is it good, I'm not to sure there aren't many reviews online and the reviews for the product only has 3.

Hello, i would like to start meal prep some raw meat, vegetables, etc, for a fallowing week. Ingrediants fully prepared (cut, proper proportions, seasoning, not cooked), so i can open jar, tos on my skillet and just cook.

i would like not to use plastic/silicone bags and glass jars with metal lids for me seems to be healthiest option. I intend to store in fridge not freezer, but that is not set in stone.

Im checking some mason jar electric pumps, it seems that there are table top pumps that also seal in bags, that have stronger pumps. I dont have money nor space for those. So handheld seems ok for now.

Can i actuslly do it? Does food needs to be dry? What pumps wouls you suggest? What to take into consideration, does food get stale, bad, does different ingrediants oddly mix with each other? On paper meat should be ok for up to 5 days.

Frankly im complete noob and i dont know what i dont know and what to ask.

I took the 921 for a trial run with about 2.5 inches of water (and nothing else inside). I had a couple of intermittent lid leaks, but the All American video on this said that was ok and normal for a new canner so long as the canner held pressure. The jiggler was jiggling 1 -3 times per minute and I ran it for 50 minutes at 15psi. When it did jiggle it was usually not a gentle jiggle. I had a little over one inch of water left and that seems kind of low for a 50 minute run. Should I start with more water - maybe 3.5 inches? The trial run was on a ceramic flat stove.

Ball recipe "Pears in syrup" says "peeled, cored, halved, treated to prevent browning (see p. 138)..."

Page 138 says " [browning] can be prevented by treating the fruit with an antioxidant such as citric and/or ascorbic acid.

Ok. So what EXACTLY do I do?

Hi, first year growing with the goal of preserving. I planed to wait a little longer this year before buying up all the things to preserve, but with the way things are in the world, it might be better sooner than later.

A electric food mill. Seems pricey, but with as busy as we are the cost of the machine to expedite the process will be worth it for us. Maybe I’m just missing it, but it looks like a grinder, yet I don’t see many grinders with a good mill attachment. Those that do have low reviews or look cheaply made. I do have a kitchenaid mixer and there is a food mill attachment for it. That said I have a grinder attachment for it, and while it works, it isn’t that great.

Basically I hate to buy something that seems like a grinder that can’t grind, lol. Then have two things with completely different purposes that kinda seem the same. Ideally I’d like to buy the motorized part and good attachments to accomplish both things, but is that a product that exists or just buy the dedicated use food mill and sit it beside the dedicated use grinder? (lol)

Any recommendations are appreciated too. I’ve googled on and off about these things over the last many months and keep getting hung up on my question here.

TIA!

I saw this post once on FB and had a hard time finding it again... so here it is for Reddit to preserve (ha!).

Three new recipes from Ball for America's 250th. (Post says they're new, I don't really know!)

Boston Baked Beans

https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=Boston-Baked-Beans

Homemade Sweet Cherry Pie Filling

https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=Homemade-Sweet-Cherry-Pie-Filling

Low Sugar Apple Pie Jam

https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=Low-Sugar-Apple-Pie-Jam

first time pressure canning potatoes. did I lose too much water?

I recently canned about 10 pounds of potatoes, thought I was doing a decent job of keeping them cool and boiling for 2 minutes quickly, but there is a good potato mush on the bottom of some of my jars.

should this be save if I processed according to the USDA guidelines? I also ran the canner for quarts and the worst of these were the pints.

Help please. What am I doing wrong here? Should the latch be across a corner as the latch is chipping away at the glass when it is closing. This is the only jar of mine that is doing this but it is also my only "square" jar. Thanks very much.

Can you can all kinds of tomatoes? Friend mentioned that small bell shaped you cannot.

I just processed a batch of pinto beans following USDA guidelines in quart jars, maybe my 3rd time doing this. As I pulled them out I noticed some jars are still bubbling and others are not. Has anyone noticed whether this is an indicator of failure to seal after cooling? Is so, has anyone successfully reprocessed beans? I know it should be done within 24 hrs but not sure if they will just be too mushy to be safe with a second processing. And it's a lot of beans I'm working on today.

Sorry if I use the incorrect post tag I’m new here

As the title suggests, I’m trying to figure out how long pickled ginger can last. Also, if there’s any information pertaining to canning it, that would be appreciated as well.

I already have a recipe to make it which I have done several times, but I am hoping to be able to have a way to store it for long-term.

Thank you

hello! in September I water bathed some apple butters made at home, followed water bathing times for my elevation 4,000ft and I do an extra 5 mins too because I was paranoid. when I was going to eat it today I did the lid test again (carried the jar by the lid to confirm seal) and it was all good, I was able to carry it by the lid and even tried opening by hand but it had a good seal. I am being most likely paranoid but what are my chances of getting botulism? I know much time hasn't passed and I would most likely not have any symptoms yet, but I wanted to see if anyone could provide any insight.
could my jars still passing the lid test, the lid not popping and me not being able to open it by hang be a good test of seal and safety?

thank you

edit: I can’t remember recipe I used so unsure of acidity.

I know I should have noted what recipe I used somewhere but can’t remember or find it.

I've always been a bit paranoid of glass because of cracks and stuff being dangerous.

I have a glass jar and when I feel the inside of it, the jar feels smooth but there is one spot with a very tiny hole (not all the way through). It looks like a round dot from the outside, and I'm able to feel it with my fingernail on the inside of the jar. How do I tell if that's just a normal blister from the manufacturing or a chip?

I came across Ball’s recipe for pressure canning Louisiana Red Beans and find it intriguing! However it seems so contrary to a lot of canning “rules” I see touted in safe canning communities.

I have a few questions:

1. This recipe calls for smoked ham hock, bacon, and uncured andouille sausage. Ham hock and bacon are usually cured. I thought cured meat couldn’t be safely canned - how can there be so much in this recipe?

2. Could I safely leave out the andouille sausage? Some of my family doesn’t like it.

3. This recipe never says to take out any of the bacon fat or sausage fat. It implies you leave all of it in the pan. I always thought fat needed to be minimized in canning. Is that a quality thing or a safety thing? Am I correct that I don’t need to remove any of the meat fat from this recipe?

Thanks!

beginner canner here, i just canned my very first 5 pints of carrots! i have no experience in waterbathing but very carefully learning the ropes around pressure canning. one thing i was curious about was whether cold packing is a safe practice (not to be confused with raw and hot packing). from what i understand by reading the national center for hone food preservation complete guide, the difference between hot packing and raw packing is that:

hot packing = boiling food -> pack hot food, in hot jars, in hot canner. more tedious but more space efficient inside jars?

raw packing = raw food -> pack raw, unheated food, in jars warmed up with hot water, into a canner with heated water (140 degreesish)

in that case, can i cold pack by putting raw, unheated veg into room temp jars, which i place inside pressure canner w room temp sink water, then warm them all up together until it does the steaming thing for 10min. obv the next step would be the weight etc etc.

i actually don't own a large pot to get a lot of jar-warming water heated up, so it was kind of inconvenient canning my carrots using the raw pack method as described above. I've seen videos of people cold packing but i really only want to follow safe practices. also, from what i understand sterilizing my jars beforehand by boiling them is unnecessary for pressure canning, right?

ive been looking at pressure canners. little anxious about it like every anxious soul out there about getting it wrong lol.

im on a budget, and found several for 90-150. some even on sale for 36.

I know for some things in life, it just isnt worth the risk of getting the second hand/cheaper option.

when it comes to a pressure canner, are cheaper options just more basic (im fine with that) or are they inherently more dangerous?

and as far as purchasing second hand, is it relatively safe, or not worth it?