Since it's not recommended by the USDA, there are no guidelines. That's an oxymoron.

If you wish, you can look up a variety of canned pumpkin butter recipes from the 80's and earlier, prior to testing. Normally those old recipes boiling water bath, though some are open kettle "canned." There are lots online.

Carol

Hi Carol -

Anyone who does can Pumpkin Butter would probably have their own recipe/method, which was what I meant by guidelines. The USDA also recommends cooking all meat until it's leather (well-done), but you don't hear of all that many steak-house related deaths.

Del

If it were me, I would cook the pumpkin "juice" down a lot, and then use it as a vegetable broth to make a soup base. It may need to be watched carefully as it reduces, because there are carbohydrates in there that could burn on the bottom of the pan.

PS -- when you see the term "Pumpkin Jelly Roll" -- I believe it is a PUMPKIN flavored spice cake, with usually a cream cheese type filling, rolled up as in the JELLY ROLL style. Not, I believe, a ROLL cake filled with PUMPKIN JELLY. :-)

OK, Mister Know-It-All here is Over and Out!

You can always take a Ouija Board and come up with a time. It would be as scientific.

The steak issue is apples and oranges to canning because with canning you're sealing things in a jar under a vacuum. The risks are entirely different. It's not logical to assume from one USDA recommendation that others are invalid.

Honestly, I think you've come to the wrong place. There are lots of other canning forums where respondents are less cautious that might be better suited to your inquiry.

Carol

Carol -

My point with the steak was simply that the USDA guidelines are supposed to be idiot proof. Since I am not an idiot, your ouija comment notwithstanding, I find myself looking at the USDA guidelines with a healthy degree of skepticism. That isn't to say I'm going to throw them out the window, simply that I'm open to alternatives. Canning with wire bail and Weck style jars is not recommended by the USDA, either - but people in Europe do it all the time - and don't die. If no one ever questions the guidelines how on earth do they ever get revised?

Del

A Carol said, there are recipes out on the web for pumpkin butter. Lots of them unfortunately.

Knowledgeable canners with even a basic understanding of acidity and density issues in safe home canning won't touch it unless they are in the mood to play Russian roulette. So pumpkin butter is one of the foods that falls in the "grandma always canned it and no one died" (that I know of) camp of canning.

Besides, it freezes so well that there honestly isn't any justification for taking the risk. But it is your risk to take if you wish.

Dave