We're in full food preservation mode around here right now, as lots of fruits and vegetables are in their prime and our farmer's market is only open for another week. My parents came up a few weekends ago and we canned tomatoes together. Despite this being our third year preserving tomatoes, Tres and I have not been stellar record-keepers and had no real recollection of how many we had purchased in years past. Tres estimated 60 pounds, so we doubled that for this year and headed home from the farmer's market with our bounty.
half of our purchase
The first step was washing and blanching the tomatoes, so that we could peel them easily (the frying basket from the turkey deep fryer we use for brewing beer lends itself well to this job).
boiling water for blanching
Next, we peeled and quartered the tomatoes, then put them back in a pot and heated them over the stove until they were very juicy and could easily be crushed with a wooden spoon (turns out the quartering step was actually unnecessary, as they break down plenty during this step). Then, it was time to can. We filled each jar (which had been warming up in a hot water bath) with tomatoes and a bit of lemon juice (to assure proper acidity), capped it, and then canned them, 7 quarts at a time, in the pressure canner.
one batch peeled and quartered
Mom heating the tomatoes (it got late)
our jar filling area
(aka the top of the washer and dryer)
All in all, it doesn't sound too bad and it wasn't. The more tomatoes we processed, the better we got. Unfortunately, the canner cannot be hurried in the time it takes to heat up, pressurize, and cool down, so we were limited as to how quickly we could work. It also turns out that 120 pounds is a LOT of tomatoes - we made 54 quarts, which was 8 batches in the canner. This took most of two days, with very little downtime, but we're very happy with the results.
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