Canning Salsa

Kato

I am looking to finally can some salsa. The freeze is here and I had to strip the garden and I have a lot of tomatoes and various peppers. I understand the canning process for the most part and I am considering getting a canner, but may do without as we don't really have the money to drop on one right now. I am at a loss though concerning the lemon juice.

Any instructions or canning recipes have you following their ingredient list and suggest that you do not deviate from that recipe for salsa. Honestly, that is not the kind of salsa we like and make. I tend to have a much higher pepper content and the tomato amount varies from batch to batch. It all depends on how hot the peppers are for example. Anyone have some experience with canning and maybe give me some tips? Is there a ratio of lemon juice to how much tomatoes you are adding in or should I not worry so much about that?

Djeet

Google "water bath canning" for a rundown of the process. If you're adjusting the recipe just be aware to keep the acidity (be it vinegar or citrus juice) at least as high as recommended by the recipe as it's key the in the preservation process for boiling water bath method. Also you do not want the jars in direct contact with the bottom of the boiler pot, which is why canning boilers have inserts/grates to hold up the jars.

If you haven't done it before, best to use an existing recipe which specifies the amount of acidic ingredient to a particular sized batch of salsa. And don't skimp on the processing/boil time. You can feel free to adjust other ingredients so long as you don't dilute the acidity; botulism bad. If you don't like lemon juice, you can try lime juice, which is a more normal ingredient for salsa. You may be able to sub vinegar but you'd have to investigate what the ratio would be as vinegar can be less acidic than lemon juice.

You probably want to invest in a canning kit so you can safely handle boiling hot jars, lids, and foods.

You may be able to use less acid if you use a pressure canner instead of boiling water bath method.

A co-worker of mine does a lot of canning so if you have any particular questions I can ask him. For salsas he uses a packet recipe (found in the cannning area of your grocery store) and adjust ingredients to taste, but he makes sure to use the amount of vinegar recommended by the recipe.

Fizban140

My parents did this with a large garden, got about 40 cans of useless sasla. They didn't drain the tomatoes or anything so it is mostly water, and it just tastes like tomatoes because they didn't add enough seasoning.