Best method/process for managing harvest for canning

[z_willus_d]

Thanks Jerry, pulling the weight makes sense. So, we're not going to see an imediate, intense pressure drop as it will be mediated by the small hole where the weight sets.

I'm still trying to figure out what to do with all that tomato water acculation in my freezer bags. I'm torn between the idea of Lurley's method of trying to be rid of excess water vs. the concept that that water contains things like soluable sugar goodies that I don't want to loose. Don't want to toss the baby out with the ...
--naysen

[DiggingDogFarm]

Originally Posted by z_willus_d

I'm still trying to figure out what to do with all that tomato water acculation in my freezer bags. I'm torn between the idea of Lurley's method of trying to be rid of excess water vs. the concept that that water contains things like soluable sugar goodies that I don't want to loose. Don't want to toss the baby out with the ...
--naysen

There certainly is some flavor in the liquid and locular gel.
I reduce the liquid separately from the tomatoes on the stove top.

[z_willus_d]

Ah, interesting concept. So, you extract the liquid by whatever means (freezing then thaw) or something like the Lurley method. Process the tomato solid matter with limited stove time to retain freshness, and in parallel reduce the liquid in a separate pot after which you presumably mix the two together for the jars (then final processing). Did I get that right. If you had, by example, 10 cups of fairly clear tomato liquid and gel, how long would you reduce before mixing back into the solids? Would you end up with 5 cups, 2?

Thanks,
Naysen

[DiggingDogFarm]

I reduce it until it becomes quite thick, then add it to the solids for further reducing.

[lurley]

Z
I have two presto canners that just have a weight that I remove to vent the pressure BEFORE removing the lid, you should never try to remove the lid of your canner while it is still under pressure. My friend who has a canner with only a dial, has to lift hers off the stove and run it under cold water to get the same result of rapid depressurization. I do check the vent after every batch and before canning to make sure it is clean and clear, just routine safety procedure with any canner.
I would not put the liquid into my sauce, it will save you much time cooking your sauce down, so the more liquid you can get out early the better, and my sauce is plenty flavorful.
That said, I wouldn't toss it out either, it is quite yummy on it's own. There are many recipes on the net for clear tomato soup. Folks actually drain the clear liquid off of canned or cooked homegrown tomatoes, then throw away the tomato meat (a crime!) so they can have clear tomato soup!
Here is one link
http://www.food.com/recipe/tomato-co...-oliver-320279
If you imbibe, there is always a "non" bloody mary.

[z_willus_d]

Thanks for the follow-up Lurley. I had my first session yesterday (did not use your method), and it was quite the Herculean effort across the board. I left work early and started in earnest at 3pm finishing up sometime after 10pm -- no breaks. I made plenty of small mistakes, learned a lot, managed to heat my small house to temperatures reminiscent of 100+ degree weather (it was only in the low-mid 90s), probably added $25 to my gas bill, made a mess of the kitchen and cleaned it, and ultimately ended up with 7 quarts 1 pint of reasonably dense, though not so as yours, pure tomato sauce. I'm convinced something will have to do differently next time -- to much energy and work consumed and one can really taste the difference between slightly cooked and 5 hour reduced tomato pulp. I saved about 10lb of tomatoes for next time, to which I'll certainly add another ten in the coming week. I intend to try out your method (or something like it) in a much more modest endeavor soon. I'll post pics of my adventures later, as well as a description of the process I used, perhaps a roadmap of what not to do.
-naysen

[Structure]

Lots of right answers. My own is that I just add it to my crushed tomatoes. I'm not looking for a particularly heavy sauce. The best sauce, IMO is just a bunch of peeled fresh tomatoes crushed and cooked a bit. So defrosting and processing both tomatoes and juice together approximates this for me.

Of course, for specific recopies (marinara, ketchup) I'll boil down the sauce.

[z_willus_d]

Alright, I posted some pictures -- pardon the quality -- of my odyssey through canningdom. I started by removing roughly ten bags of previously frozen tomatoes from my landing area in the fridge. I found that the bags were half full of liquid from the sad tomatoes, so first lesson learned: always wash the tomatoes before bagging for the freezer. I spent a long time trying to discern which bags had been loaded with relatively clean fruits vs. those that were full of dirt or worse. Those bags that I deemed clean (enough), I poured the liquid contents into a large SS saute pan. That pan reduced for well over 2 hours on high heat. All the deflated fruits went into a Le Cruset in roughly quarters (skin, core and all on). I heated this mess of stuff up to a boil, noticed a lot of water had separated, so poured that part into the boiling saute pan, then turned off the heat and processed the contents in my new Victorio.

This part of the process was a bear. Mistake #2, don't try and process heated contents in the mill. It heated up and burned me at every step. Also, the pulp seemed to congeal with the skins and made it very difficult to push through the default sized filter-screen. At this point, I was very wiped out and sweaty hot from a good hour of turning that mill for just processing my freezer contents. I wasn't too happy with the consistency of the output either, finding it despite having poured off much of the water early on, quite liquid, almost like tomato juice. Speaking of the waters, by this time it had reduced by two-thirds in the saute pan. I tasted it and found it very bitter, acidic and concentrated. I decided to mix these contents into the Victorio stuff to try and free-up and wash out the plugged grill parts. I returned the full output to the Le Cruset and reduced at a low-medium boil for the remainder of my time (about 4 hours).

I still had about half of my fruits sitting on the living room buffet, fresh and ready to be crushed. For these, I switched over to the pumpkin screen, a wider mesh that allowed about half of the seeds to pass through it but gave a more pulpy output. I just washed the fresh fruit, halved/quartered and dropped it into the mill for processing. This worked better cold and fresh than before with the preheated frozen tomatoes. The result of all this stuff went in a 2nd pot, but I decided not to even heat it up. The taste of this fresh sauce was so vibrant and alive compared to the stuff I'd been boiling down over the past several hours. I was thinking I might jar the two caches separate, but decided in the end to must mix the two together, the heat of one semi-processing the other. The end result went straight into my 7 quarts 1 pint (w/ 1-2 Tbs of fresh lemon concentrate), and then into the All American pressure cooker for 15-minutes processing at 10lb. I let the canner vent for 7-minutes without the pet-c o c k deal before starting the 15-minute final timer.

One slight bummer I noted in my cans after they came out of the mostly cooled, depressurized canner was that the contents in most had separated water and sauce, about 1 to 5 ratio. Any thoughts on how to eliminate this in the future. I figure it could have something to do with the addition of the unheated tomato pulp from my 2nd batch, which incidentally looked quite integrated at mixing. This site suggests various methods for handling the water and explains the leakage phenomenon on pectin and it's reaction to oxygen and heat.

In summary, I found the All American to be a really well made, solid piece of equipment -- should be for $200. For $100 with accessories, the Victorio was far less so. The plastic that guides pulp out of the spiral was off and allowed juice to fall in the wrong places. It felt like it would give in after a while. I see what folks like in it and how it can save time, but it just didn't fully deliver for me on this occasion. As far as the sauce, I found it quite good, where I found my perceived compromise of mixing the two pots together (first well reduced and second fresh) to produce a more complex and balanced result -- success!

Thanks to all the hints and help folks passed along in this thread; they were a great help.

--naysen

[TomNJ]

Good first effort, and thanks for sharing.

The easiest way to make tomato puree is to just wash, trim, and cut raw tomatoes into pieces (about the size of a small paste tomato), run them through the Victorio, and boil them down to your desired texture. I did 20 lbs of tomatoes yesterday and the milling took less than 10 minutes.

Your picture of the Victorio shows a salsa screen installed (1/4" holes), not the pumpkin screen (1/8" holes). The salsa screen will semi-clog with skins after about 10 lbs of tomatoes, but takes only a few minutes to remove, clean, and reinstall. The tomato screen (1/16" holes) will run some 20-30 lbs of tomatoes without clogging. The screen type is engraved on the large end of the screen.

Also you should add reconstituted lemon juice (equivalent to lemon juice strength), not concentrated juice. Citric acid is even better and only requires 1/2 teaspoon per quart.

Cooking the sauce down to sauce thickness should eliminate the separation you are seeing in the jar. This problem occurs mostly when making tomato juice or thin sauces, and can be avoided by heating some chopped tomatoes first, then adding the rest slowly. Try shaking your jars when cool to see if it stays together.

Personally, I would discard water separated from the freezing - just not worth the effort of boiling it down, IMHO.

Keep up the good work - it gets easier over time.

TomNJ

[z_willus_d]

Tom, thanks for the pep "talk" and additional tips.

Yes, the picture I show of my Victorio was taken with the Salsa screen installed just before I decided I wouldn't bother with it. So, I really did use the tomato and then pumpkin screen for the two halves of tomatoes that I milled.

I have read that tomatoes are on the edge of even needing the addition of acid. I also read that the use of a pressure cooker can further mitigate the need for acid addition. In any case, the lemon that I added was from frozen cubes I'd made a while back from a bunch of very acidic (to taste at least) lemons. I wasn't too careful in this area, but for the reasons I mention above.

Your explaination for the water separation makes sense, and I can see how the 2nd half of pulp (from the Pumpkin screen) that was not reduced at all over heat would have resulted in a lot of extra water in my mix, despite the heavy reduction performed on the first half.

I'm going to give this all a 2nd try this weekend when I'll try Lurley's method -- where I will strive to eliminate tomato water from the mix before Victorio processing and the subsequent, short heating phase before jar processing. I hope the whole process takes less than 8 hours this time, far less indeed as I am targetting 1/3 the mass of tomatoes.
--naysen

[kath]

So, I also ordered one of these mills as a result of this thread and am using it today for the first time. I studied the manual and watched the online video, so I'm quite sure that it is lubed up and assembled correctly.

My problem is that when it is working properly, the handle is fairly easy to turn and the raw tomatoes go through rather quickly; however, it seems to clog up for no reason and is a bear to turn. Just as quickly, it will run smoothly again.

Since it's quite a mess to take it all apart, clean it, reassemble it, I'm hesitant to do that yet AGAIN, as I've done that 2 times already and it seems to work sporadically again each time I start again. I've tried cutting the tomatoes in smaller pieces, sticking a thin silicone spatula through the opening in the hopper, turning the handle counter-clockwise,...any other ideas? Do I have a lemon?

[z_willus_d]

Hi Kath,

Your experience exactly matches my own, having used the mill now twice. With hot material, larger chunks, full and uncored, small and chopped and everything in between. I don't see a solution. It seems the mill is somewhat chaotic. But I'm open to hearing what others have experienced. Perhaps the older models or older 250's were more user friendly.
-naysen

[kath]

Originally Posted by z_willus_d

Hi Kath,

Your experience exactly matches my own, having used the mill now twice. With hot material, larger chunks, full and uncored, small and chopped and everything in between. I don't see a solution. It seems the mill is somewhat chaotic. But I'm open to hearing what others have experienced. Perhaps the older models or older 250's were more user friendly.
-naysen

Naysen-

Sorry to hear that was your experience, too. I called customer service twice but neither person was any help. Chopping smaller seemed to help a bit; also not filling the hopper more than halfway and using the small end of the tamper. I just kept taking the screen out when it got too bad and cleaning it out with a brush, which seemed to help most of all.

I worked from late morning until 6 pm and all I did was puree the ripest of the tomatoes that I had and clean up the mess I made. Adding to my problem was the fact that the mill won't attach to anything in my kitchen but a rather wiggly table so when the turning gets tough, the table rocks so much that the juice sloshes out of the bowl onto the table and floor. Never even got to canning any of it today!Tomorrow I'll tackle the canning and hopefully get to the rest of the tomatoes that still need milling-probably another 40 lbs.

I was hoping I either had a lemon that I could exchange or that someone knew a trick that would make it run smoothly all the time...sigh.

Kath

[TomNJ]

I wish I had a solution for you both, but I have never had any problems with my Victorio 250. The only advice I can offer is:

1. Remove the stems from the tomatoes.

2. Cut the tomatoes into pieces that can be squished through the hopper hole (about the size of half a paste tomato).

3. Be sure the large red plastic screw is fully seated on the shaft under the spring (rotate the screw). If not, assembly and cranking will be difficult.

4. Avoid pushing the small end of the tamper too deeply into the hopper hole while cranking, as it can hit the screw and cranking stops.

I fill my hopper to the brim and continuously squish the tomato pieces through the hole with the small end of the tamper while cranking. I have never had a screen clog to the point of hard cranking or juice flow stops. The large-holed salsa screen will "clog" in the sense that pieces of tomato skin will catch on the holes, and if not cleaned after about 10-15 lbs may allow some skin to get into the juice, but juice flow is not interupted. I have run over 40 lbs of tomatoes through the small-holed tomato screen without cleaning or problems.

All I can suggest is recheck the assembly carefully, especially #3 above.

TomNJ

[z_willus_d]

Kath, wow, morning to night and no canning just cleaning. That sounds far more arduous than my experiences. I do have a nice wooden cutting board to stabilize the mil. I can't image the annoyance of having the catch bowl splash up everytime you turn a heavy crank. In my time, I only removed the regular tomato screen once to clean while processing enough mater for 4 quarts of tomato paste. I then used a pumpkin screen, which seemed a bit easier, though it let many of the tomato seeds slip into the mix. I will say that the milling aspect of this process was by far the hardest for me and most surprising at that. I expected the mill portion to take far less time and result in far less brow dripping than it did. I think I braced my resulting sauce with more than a few drops of sweat, between the heated, steamy kitchen and all that cranking. I will say, my second attempt was easier, so maybe there is an element of experience to the process, and/or perhaps the machine "breaks in" a bit with use. Good luck with your canning, and let us know how the result tastes and how many jars of what size you end up with.
--naysen