SALSA...a mistake
 

Of course I am a man...and not a great cook. But, when I processed my salsa in my pressure cooker...why did it boil out most of the liquids (tomato sauce, lemon juice, etc), and leave a "dry-ish" salsa with too much head space in the jar??? thanks :cry:

My first thought is that there was air pockets trapped in the salsa. I always rapped the jars of clumpy stuff on the table and ran a knife down the side to get the air out.

Other thoughts are a way too long of an exhaust procedure. I'm talking about the time you let the canner exhaust steam before you close the valve, put the weight on or do whatever is required of your canner to build pressure or maybe dumping the pressure off the canner without letting it cool.

Besides the ideas that Doug had I would add temperature fluctuation in the canner while cooking.

I was very diligent about evenly building up pressure and maintaining it. Also, I did poke around the sauce to eliminate air pockets. It just looks like pico...not salsa. Maybe it will be fine...:evil:

I truly think that a pressure canner is overkill for tomatoes. In the past, I have made salsa and canned it, but not in the pressure canner. The high acidity of the heavy tomato base does not really require pressure canning. After bringing everything up to a boil in the big 12 quart pot I use, I fill the quart jars. Then I bring in the "boiling water bath" setup and make sure everything comes up to temperature (about 20 minutes). I get good seals on the can lids and have stored my salsa for at least 18 months with no problems.

I have modified my storage methods over the last two years. Now, I make only very thick tomato juice with only canning salt and possibly a small quantity of sugar. Very thick means about a 45% reduction prior to canning. When I need salsa, I break out frozen or fresh ingredients and add my "juice". Works and tastes great.

Anyhow, so far, this works very well for us.

Did you use some sauce blacks?

It was overcooked that's all. 20 minutes is a long time for something like salsa that is already cooked. Remember you are cooking whatever you are processing so 20 minutes would be a long time even for many raw vegetables. Try less time, 10 minutes for pint jars aught to be plenty imo. I actually don't even process salsa as my recipe has vinegar in it which makes it acidic enough not to spoil. I never process anything with vinegar in it like relish or pickles, chutney etc. for the same reason (there is no need and it overcooks things) I pour it boiling hot into hot sterile jars and seal. The jars always seal and I have never had it spoil. the secret to no spoilage is boiling hot and sterile jars (I bake my jars in the oven at 250 degrees to sterilize them and boil the lids separately. don't touch anything with your hands)
Keeps in a cool dark place at least a year. (but it never lasts that long :)
KO

Karen

I am at a loss for words over kill.
Even the store bought is hot salsa poured into hot jars a lid put on and that is it.

I think you may have let the pressure out too fast.
This will force the moisture out of the jars.
You need a cool down time.
What you have is a jar that is over 212 degrees that is built to hold a vacuum not pressure.
The result is what you got.
Or the lids weren't on tight enough.
Worth

I agree with Worth about overkill...I only hot water bath salsa.

trying to figure out some of the helpful posts...."overkill"...not sure pressure is any more work than the bath. It does get hotter, and I know that is prob not necessary. It does use much less water. I thought about bath, but I really like my pressure cooker.What is "sauce black"???

I've never water bath canned. When I was a kid we even did fruit in a pressure canner. I figured it out once that the total time to cycle a load is less with a pressure canner than with a water bath.

Over cooking it can ruin the texture, taste or consistance, but it shouldn't reduce the volume of liquid and solid in the jar. The only thing that I've seen that will empty a jar of liquid is either a lot of trapped air or quick drops in pressure. To get that much air in the salsa and not notice it you would have had to beat it like cake batter and then a lot.

If you have the time post a step by step process you use including what canner and dial or gauge. Make it just like instructions you'd write for someone that had never canned before. Thinking about it in that detail will may cause you to spot your error, or one of us may spot it, or rule out your procedure.

Boiling water baths should only be used for high acid foods having a pH below 4.6, such as many fruits, pickled products, and tomatoes. Tomatoes are borderline, most having a pH of 4.2 to 4.5, but when you add large amounts of low acid ingredients such as onions, peppers, celery, garlic, corn, beans, etc., the pH rises to a level that could allow botulism spores to hatch and grow. While botulism is rare and there are usually less than 10 cases per year from home canned foods, these cases are usually related to improperly processing low acid foods.

C Botulinum spores, which are commonly present in most soils, can survive 20 hours of boiling, but are killed in only 12 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure (240°F) and 3 minutes at 15 pounds of pressure (250°F). Mind you this means the entire contents on the jar must be at those temperatures, which means the jars must be precessed for a longer time to get the center of the jar to the right temperature. There is no rule of thumb as to how long as it varies with altitude, the density of the food being canned, chunk size, thickness, etc.

Surviving spores after processing are harmless so long as they don't hatch - it is the growing bacteria that creates the toxin. In order to hatch the spores need water, food, a temperature between 38 and 140°F, a lack of oxygen, and a pH above 4.6 (low acidity). All of these conditions are present in canned low acid foods. So the name of the game is either kill the spores with pressure cooking, or prevent their hatching with high acidity, or both.

Botulinum growth does not necessarily cause the lids to lose vacuum or change the smell or taste of the product, but it usually occurs with other mold growth that does. If you choose to can such products in a boiling water bath, be sure to examine the contents carefully and do not eat the contents straight out of the jar. If botulism toxin does develop, it is easy to destroy the toxin by boiling for 20 minutes, so you should boil the contents before eating.

I processed my salsa in a boiling water bath for over 30 years without issue, but a pressure canner is safer when large quantities of low acid ingredients are added to tomato products. The addition of vinegar, lemon or lime juice, or citric acid also improves safety by lowering the pH. After significant research I now can my salsa in a pressure cooker and add 1/4 teaspoon of citric acid to each pint (citric acid has less effect on flavor than vinegar or lemon juice). I did not notice any change in the flavor or texture of my salsa.

There are detailed instructions on canning in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving, or online at [URL]http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html[/URL]. Some studing on this subject is prudent.

TomNJ

Just for a little perspective regarding the danger of botulism in home canned foods, from the CDC website: there is an average of 110 cases total of botulism documented in the USA yearly with approximately 25% of those from food borne sources. Most of those from improperly canned traditional foods (fish) in Alaska. There is a risk, but I am just trying to illustrate that the risk is extremely low so people can feel quite confident in the safety of their properly cooked homemade preserves.
KO
KO

[QUOTE=TomNJ;376249]Boiling water baths should only be used for high acid foods having a pH below 4.6, such as many fruits, pickled products, and tomatoes. Tomatoes are borderline, most having a pH of 4.2 to 4.5, but when you add large amounts of low acid ingredients such as onions, peppers, celery, garlic, corn, beans, etc., the pH rises to a level that could allow botulism spores to hatch and grow. While botulism is rare and there are usually less than 10 cases per year from home canned foods, these cases are usually related to improperly processing low acid foods.

C Botulinum spores, which are commonly present in most soils, can survive 20 hours of boiling, but are killed in only 12 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure (240°F) and 3 minutes at 15 pounds of pressure (250°F). Mind you this means the entire contents on the jar must be at those temperatures, which means the jars must be precessed for a longer time to get the center of the jar to the right temperature. There is no rule of thumb as to how long as it varies with altitude, the density of the food being canned, chunk size, thickness, etc.

Surviving spores after processing are harmless so long as they don't hatch - it is the growing bacteria that creates the toxin. In order to hatch the spores need water, food, a temperature between 38 and 140°F, a lack of oxygen, and a pH above 4.6 (low acidity). All of these conditions are present in canned low acid foods. So the name of the game is either kill the spores with pressure cooking, or prevent their hatching with high acidity, or both.

Botulinum growth does not necessarily cause the lids to lose vacuum or change the smell or taste of the product, but it usually occurs with other mold growth that does. If you choose to can such products in a boiling water bath, be sure to examine the contents carefully and do not eat the contents straight out of the jar. If botulism toxin does develop, it is easy to destroy the toxin by boiling for 20 minutes, so you should boil the contents before eating.

I processed my salsa in a boiling water bath for over 30 years without issue, but a pressure canner is safer when large quantities of low acid ingredients are added to tomato products. The addition of vinegar, lemon or lime juice, or citric acid also improves safety by lowering the pH. After significant research I now can my salsa in a pressure cooker and add 1/4 teaspoon of citric acid to each pint (citric acid has less effect on flavor than vinegar or lemon juice). I did not notice any change in the flavor or texture of my salsa.

There are detailed instructions on canning in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving, or online at [URL]http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html[/URL]. Some studing on this subject is prudent.

TomNJ[/QUOTE]

Thanks for all the info Tom.

I canned some tomato sauce - only three pints of it, by the time it had all boiled down. Not knowing any better, I added eggplant (to sop up some of the liquid), garlic and sweet red peppers to my sauce. I put a tablespoon of Real Lime juice in each jar before canning in a water bath.

Guess I will have to pressure cook it (as I usually do) really well when adding it to the meat, etc. in my spaghetti sauce.

Linda

Most botulism poisoning is actually infant botulism - infants under one year old do not have enough acid in their stomachs to prevent spores from hatching, which is why you should not feed infants with honey in water. Fortunately infant botulism is rarely fatal. Second is wound botulism, which is growing due to drug use, then the Alaskan fish products.

Other canned food botulism is split between commercial incidents and home canning. In a CDC paper covering botulism incidents from 1990 to 2000 there were 70 cases of botulism from home canned foods or an average of seven per year. The biggest offenders were low acid foods such as asparagus, beets, tuna, beans, garlic in oil, olives, and peppers - only one case from tomato products. Fatality rate was about 4%, but it can take months to recover from the paralysis.

Considering there are over 20 million home canners in the USA, botulism is a rare disease indeed, but prevention is pretty easy by just following some basic rules for canning.

The CDC paper can be seen here:
[URL]http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no9/03-0745.htm[/URL]

TomNJ/VA