Deep breath! Relax!
Yes, it can be confusing.
Yes, we're always here to help.
Yes, it will get easier.

OK, let's see....

USDA spaghetti sauce recipe (I don't have it in front of me) I am guessing it says 30 lbs. of tomatoes because they cook down so much when you make sauce. It would be pointless to start with 8 cups (or whatever) and end up with only 1/2 cup of sauce. They assume you'd like enough to can.

I believe the original "Annie's" recipe was designed to be pressure canned and requires 1/3 cup vinegar (OR lemon juice OR lime juice OR a combo of 2 or 3). Now, whether that's for taste only, Annie will have to answer. She worked with Michigan State University to come up with a safe recipe, so can answer questions about what was actually tested.
Yes, you can leave out the sugar, tomato sauce or tomato paste. Those were added to achieve the sweetness and texture per Annie. They are NOT mandatory for "safeness".

You do not need to worry about acid levels when pressure canning. Density, time, pressure and altitude are important however.

And I'm very sorry to say...........

If you're hanging out on the forum, it's too late....................you've already gone crazy!! LOL

Just try telling people you made your own spaghetti sauce.... from tomatoes.......and CANNED it! You'll see.....they'll look at you as if you were crazy! Just go with it, it's fun!

Don't hesitate to come back here with questions. Everyone is really helpful!

Deanna

hey rdback, I've been on a roller coaster since I found this forum. (Or maybe it's just undiagnosed manic-depression.) One day I'm ready to post all my canning supplies on eBay and the next I'm busily planning the next canning project. I stick with it because this is the way I can control the taste of some of my favorite things. The gurus (my term, not theirs) have led me to abandon some recipes, change others, find new ones. I have been challenged to do a lot of research and ask a lot of questions. As a result, I believe my canning output is safer. And there is the bonus of continuously excersizing my mind -- something we 70+ folks are advised to do in order to ward off Alzeheimer's. Another bonus is FUN talking with people from around the world. --Kay

Ok, let's take a step back, and let's not generalize here.

The thing about pressure canning is to follow the recipe exactly as written until you understand some fine points. Actually that's the first and foremost rule regardless whether pressure canning or using a boiling water bath.

For example, Deanna has inadvertently misled you. Acid levels can matter in pressure canning, particularly in canning tomatoes. Many instructions for pressure canning tomatoes have never actually been tested, they exist solely because the times for a water bath has been extrapolated to pressure canning. What that means is that although you may be pressure canning your tomatoes, you do not actually reach the hotter temperatures achievable by a pressure canner and you are not safe from botulism. Therefore you MUST add the same amount of acid of your choice, lemon, citric acid, vinegar whatever that you would add if you were water bathing.

Annie's recipe is one of the very few that has actually been tested and the vinegar in her salsa is required only for flavor if you are pressure canning. You may leave the vinegar out entirely if you are pressure canning Annie's salsa. That is also why the vinegar quantities are different between the water bath instructions and the pressure canning instructions. The vinegar in the water bath version is required for safety.

So ask your questions, but be careful and read the instructions. There are some tricky spots, and never assume that because you are pressure canning that you are safe without added acid. It doesn't work that way with tomatoes.

Petro

Not disagreeing Petro, but in your response above you said:

"What that means is that although you may be pressure canning your tomatoes, you do not actually reach the hotter temperatures achievable by a pressure canner and you are not safe from botulism."

Why wouldn't you reach the same temperatures??

I've canned for more than 20 years, but just blindly followed the instructions and NOW I am interested in the "why" part. Yeah, kind of backwards, but that's me!

I certainly did not mean to mislead anyone. I totally agree about following approved recipes, especially while learning.

Deanna

See, this is what I'm talking about! Contradictory info abounds, and I believe it confuses the vast majority, not just me. Ok, lets go at this a different way.

The issue is safety, namely neutralizing or destroying bacterial spores and toxins.

My understanding is the purpose of adding vinegar/lemon juice/lime juice/citric acid is to increase the acidity of the product to a pH of 4.6 or lower, which keeps bacterial spores inactive and enables us to use the BWB (212 degrees) method of canning to kill everything else (molds and yeasts).

A low-acid product, i.e. a pH above 4.6, bacterial spores can become active and produce toxins. Therefore, you must use a Pressure Canner set to a sustained minimum of 10 lbs (240 degrees) for xx minutes to destroy the spores. With this method, I donÂt see the variable as being pH, itÂs the amount of TIME to cook. ThatÂs determined by product, packing density and jar size. The entire contents of the jar (even in the center) must reach at least 240 degrees.

Lastly, I have read "somewhere" that the way to determine the xx minutes is to look up the pressure canning time for each ingredient in your recipe and use the highest number of minutes.

Argh! - I agree with Kay, I think eBay is looking better and better, although their Seller fees have gone through the roof!!! LOL

Thanks again for sharing - Rd

Petro is right, acidity does matter in pressure canning as well. Take for instance the USDA spaghetti sauce recipe, it says :Procedure: Caution: Do not increase the proportion of onions, peppers, or mushrooms.
Same for adding the bottled lemon juice to tomatoes when pressure canning or BWB canning tomatoes. The times equal each other in the end. The pressure canner time will have the same end result in destroying bacteria as the time it takes in the BWB for the tomatoes.
Annie's salsa still needs some acid to can it, even in the pressure canner. Just like the plain tomatoes in the pressure canner.
The recipes are designed for processing XX amount/type of ingredients for XX amount of time. Changing either one of those can/will make the foods unsafe.

Really.........I'm not trying to be obstinate.............Maybe I'm just dense and need to be processed longer (yeah! Pun intended).

Why do you have to add acid to tomatoes (that are already acidic to a certain degree), but not to green beans which have practically no acid?

That's the part I don't understand (I AM signing up for the Master Food Preserver class next spring....). Thanks for being soooooooooo patient!!

Deanna

Deanna,

I've wondered about the same thing. When I pressure can tomoatoes I would prefer to not add lemon juice. Why pressure can tomatoes if you do basically the same thing as with BWB?

But since I'm a novice, I've decided to follow all the directions. Still, I'm curious about the science about all of this.

I called my local extension office to try to learn more. The response I got to (question) "liquid and tomatoes have separated, is that what is supposed to happen?" was (answer) "send us a couple of jars and we'll test them." Got a similar answer to (question) "do I need to skin tomatoes before canning for food safety reasons?"

I've gotten a lot better information on this board, even just "lurking." Thanks to everyone.

Deanna, You just asked the question I was wondering about.

I was reading through the Ball Blue Book yesterday and reading the instructions for pressure canning tomatoes and noticed the lemon juice required. One of the next recipes was for stewed tomatoes which had celery, onions, green peppers, a little sugar and salt but no lemon juice.

I am very new at this too, so I follow all the directions but would also like to know the science behind it. This site is full of great information.

Tracey

Ok, here's the deal.

Yes, theoretically you can process tomatoes via a pressure canner without added acid. No reason why not. So why do all the instructions say to add the acid? Because specific pressure canning testing has NEVER been performed. The directions for pressure canning are, like I said earlier, derived from tables specific to the density of the product. Given the density and the time for water bathing you can derive the amount of time required for pressure canning for a specific pressure. The end result of that derivation is that the internal temperatures for pressure canned tomatoes are no hotter than that resulting from water bathing. Therefore, the acid is required.

Why would you bother pressure canning tomatoes if you can water bath them? According to the USDA, a higher quality and more nutritious product results from pressure canning. I don't know if that's really true or not because I see no reason for the product to be affected if the temperature curves are the same. I can only assume that they believe the extra cooking time is important even if hotter temperatures are not achieved.

By the way, if you look at the stewed tomatoes direction, there are NO instructions for water bathing that product. The stewed tomatoes product was tested specifically for pressure canning and no acid is required. It is the only recipe that I know of except Annie's where pressure instructions are available.

Now WHY was this done? Somebody decided specific testing for pressure canning without acid was not necessary. This was either a) due to budget reasons -- testing costs money -- and a perfectly safe product results with added acid that most people can't taste. Alternatively, b) someone decided that the length of time for pressure canning without acid would result in an undesirable product. My guess is the reason was budget.

In any case, the testing has not been performed and there are no plans to do said testing. How do I know this? I e-mailed the Center in Georgia and asked. Back in the days when I was confused about this very issue. So you're not obstinate (at least not as obstinate as I was), and not really confused, just lacking in some basic information that you couldn't know without going directly to the source.

I asked Annie for clarification on whether the vinegar is needed for safety for her pressure canned salsa. My understanding was that it is not needed, but perhaps I misunderstood a statement of hers. Hopefully we'll know soon. I do believe that Annie's pressure canning instructions result in hotter temperatures than a water bath. If you compare water bath times vs. pressure canned times for most tomato recipes you will see that the times for pressure canning are considerably shorter than the water bath times. For Annie's salsa she says 30 minutes at 10 lbs for pints for pressure canning. For water bathing it's 15 minutes for pints, that is a shorter time for water bathing and that is the reverse of most tomato recipes.

Petro

These are the answers I have been taught:
I was told that the reason the acid is still used in both products is because people do not want to pressure can longer in exchange for leaving out the added acid. It would take a longer pressure canning time that given. There was a survey taken among home canners. That was the majority consensus.
The difference is the density in the product, how fast it takes for the foods to heat in the canner. The green beans heat faster than the tomatoes. It is not always about the ph, but the density thrown in the equation, as well. So, that is the answer I was taught.
The stewed tomatoes are more "soupy", thus less processing time that chunks of tomatoes packed more dense in a jar.
I pressure can tomatoes because I think the pressure canner is faster, less energy used with my gas stove. Using the gas for only 25 min. compared to the 85 for BWB is shorter. The natural gas bill is expensive ! I also don't have to mess with the entire canner of water, just a few inches in the pressure canner. It is economics for me.
The longer time in the water bath, being exposed to that long in the water is supposed to destroy more nutrients than the shorter processing time in the pressure canner. At least that is again, how it was explained to me. Not that I can prove that, but how I was taught.

I hate to say this..but I am totally confuzed? Seriously I love this forum..but something people have done for years and years....from generation to generation... recipes handed down... now means nothing? I DO know I sure messed the taste of my tomato juice this year by adding the lemon juice for safe reasons..It tastes YUKKY.Has about 2'' of clear water on the bottom that I never had before because of cooking and pressuring times, but ALAS, I can sleep well because I know I won't get sick from drinking it!! BECAUSE I hate it!

Carry on........

A lot of things you think are "new" aren't. Extension services were recommending acidifying tomatoes as early as 1978, nearly 30 years ago. It's not NOW means nothing.

It's ironic that in every other respect we note how radically the world has changed yet think, despite those differences, that old canning rules still apply. We update our homes, our cars, our personal technology but deny the possibility that food science may have made new discoveries.

Think of antibiotics. It's a continual race to keep developing treatments for new drug-resistant strains of bacteria. Bacteria are not static.

All posters are doing here is notifying members of current standards. But you can process your tomatoes however you like. No one's forcing you to add lemon juice. Leave it out if you want. Or switch to citric acid. You may find the flavor less objectionable.

Carol

Thanks so much for all of the information. Like I said before I'm new to pressure canning and every little bit helps. This forum is a great resource.

Tracey

linda_lou's point about density is important. The biggest difference between pressure canning and BWB is the addition of hot PRESSURE to the process. Picture a whole tomato sitting in a pan of boiling water vs. that same tomato in a pan of boiling water with 24.7 lb. of atmospheric weight on every square inch of it (normal 14.7 lbs. plus 10 from the canner). In which one are the toxic elements going to be more quickly and thoroughly "cooked" inside and out?

After 40+ years of canning and trying to keep up with trends, I am convinced that eventually everything will have to be pressure canned when done at home and the BWB canners will be used to grow flowers.

rdback - part of your confusion results from looking for absolute rules. Only one exists in home canning: use only tested recipes and follow them to the letter. Anything else increases your risks and it is your choice as to whether that risk is acceptable. ;)

As for the so called safety of the "good old days" of canning - that is a figment of our imagination with lots of luck thrown in. Everything changes and only blind stubborness keeps us from changing with them. ;)

Just my 2 cents.

Dave

Like I said before..........I just really appreciate everyone's patience.
The lack of testing Petro mentions makes sense to me (finally). Our "gubmint" isn't going to OK anything that might get them sued.........so add lemon juice!!! (grin)
Unless of course you want to talk pharmaceuticals........
but that would be another forum I'm sure.

Deanna (who will follow the instructions because I choose to)

An appliance repairman was at our house the other day. He said he can't count the number of times customers have spoken nostalgically about the old Hotpoint fridge that lasted 40 years without a bit of trouble. Not that such appliances don't exist, but he's made a career over many years of fixing the ones that break. It seems it's human nature to remember selectively and with nostalgia what "worked" and blank out what didn't.

I'm wondering how many people in the past were ill from food-borne pathogens of one sort or another but attributed it to "24-hour flu" or some such thing. It's all anecdotal. People remember the grannies who lived to 94 and forget the vast majority who didn't. If no one in our immediate circle gets seriously ill or dies, we conclude a method is fine.

I do think Deanna's right. We live in a litigious age and no-one's eager to invite lawsuits. Additionally, look at how many new members of the Forum have no background in home food preservation. I'm sure the USDA/NCHFP/Ball/Bernardin/state Extension services choose to publish recipes that leave a good margin for "user error." However, since we don't know what that margin is, it's better not to fiddle.

I emailed the NCHFP about a pressure-canning time for tomato paste. As a really dense product it seemed to me ideal for pressure canning. Plus the boiling water bath time is so long. Dr. Andress told me that when they "inherited" the old USDA records, not all data had been saved. Since they didn't get the original lab data for testing of BWB tomato paste, they couldn't extrapolate a time for pressure canning. Starting testing from scratch just wasn't in the cards.

Carol

Well folks - just wanted to thank all of you for sharing your knowledge, thoughts and/or opinions. Its been a few days now, and Ive re-read this entire thread so as to gain a better understanding of all that has been offered.

It looks like it all boils down to Testing, or lack thereof.

I do not believe we are taking full advantage of what the Pressure Canner offers (reducing or eliminating the need to add acid) simply because no testing has been performed by the USDA or other approved facility. As I stated above, I believe if you achieve 240 degrees in the center of the product (however long that takes, depending on density, etc), you have destroyed all things bad. The problem is we, the average home canner, have no way of measuring this. Until that time, we must rely on someone else to do the testing and follow the resultant recipe.

If someone is looking for a cause to mount a campaign for, this is it LOL! More funding, better guidelines, improved and modernized testing, etc.

Until then, I think Digdirt Dave said it best:

"part of your confusion results from looking for absolute rules. Only one exists in home canning: use only tested recipes and follow them to the letter. Anything else increases your risks and it is your choice as to whether that risk is acceptable. ;)"

Again, thank you all for sharing. This is a great forum because of all you wonderful folks.

Rd

Although I had not read this thread initially, Deanna sent me here from my other posts. And I am glad she did, this is very helpful. I was also very confused about why acid is added to some pressure canned products but not others, so appreciate this reading material.

It still may not make "sense" as it appears to have more to do with testing, but at least we now have some insight as to why the rules are the way they are.

Thank you,
Ann

Very interesting thread. It clarifies some questions I had.

I've just sent a note to NCHFP. I want to use my pressure canner for everything including jams, since I am physically very uncomfortable with extra heat and humidity the BWB adds to my kitchen/home. I asked if there was some sort of guide for converting from BWB: time/pressure/altitude adjustments to pressure canning. Had I read this post first, I probably wouldn't have bothered since it seems their answer to the question will be something along the lines of .. there isn't anyway to convert unless there is already an approved 'recipe'... sigh ..

I've got to completely re-jar and re-process Plum CranApple Jam because during the pressure canning treatment, they oozed out some juice. It is questionable as to weather the seal will hold for the long run... even though they are all sealed now. Maybe in a pressure canner the jars shouldn't be filled as full (to 1/4" from top)?

One good thing is the Pomona's worked very well! This was my first time using it.

Crystal... going in to take fruit out of jars, wash jars, reheat jam, reseal with new lids..Use BWB = UGH!!! wishing I really didn't have anything else to do.

I want to use my pressure canner for everything including jams...

Crystal - I strongly encourage you to give this more thought. ;) Some things are simply not meant to be pressure canned - ever. It changes the taste and texture of the product substantially in many cases.

And jams? The BWB processing time on them is so very short that the heat and humidity added to the room is minimal. And you'll get even more h&h from the pressure canner because you have to bring it up to pressure too.

Shoot, many still use just inversion canning on them and don't even BWB - not that I'm recommending it.

So yes, I fear your answer will be something along the line of "it isn't possible to convert and it isn't recommended either". ;)

Dave

I did buy some citric acid this year. As luck would have it, my tomato crop failed.

Perhaps if we start putting antibiotics in our canned tomatoes???? But if the govm't hasn't already thought of it by now, forget it - they do everywhere else already, and you know what has come of that.

Sooo - in the meantime, I'm still using my frozen maters from last year's harvest. I do hope you all come to some sort of happy conclusions before my next bumper crop of tomatoes.

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

Poly Sorbate 80, and potassium sorbate are currently used as commercial preservatives, as is a radiation treatment for 'shelf stable' foods like heat and serve dinners that are in plastic trays.

Hmmm, I have difficulty equating adding lemon juice or citric acid to tomato products to adding antibiotics. Bit of a reach. ;)

But then I also have difficulty with the claims that adding 2 T of lemon juice to a qt. of tomato juice "ruins" it. Hogwash! Anyone can choose to leave it out if they wish but the tested recommendation is to add it.

Bottom line - we can each choose our own level of risk but we don't have the right to make that choice for others by providing misleading info.

Dave

Better to be safe than sorry, when it comes to adding acid of some find for tomatoes. Heck, I don't even process mine for that long length of time recommended, when every jar is filled with the boiling liquid, and quickly capped.

I never used anything for pressure canning tomatoes.
Just peeled and put in jars and pressure can them.
Never any problem.

Pressure canning process would be used on tomatoes if no added acid was used in each jar. Because I don't use, or have a pressure canner, I add the necessary acid.