Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Small Batch Retort Canning

Over the summer our little garden only produces a few tomatos, beets, carrots, and so on a day.  After we eat what we want for that day. There is never really enough left at one time to can an entire batch of sauce but far to much to consume right then. 

We use our vacuum packer to vacuum pack and freeze these small batches daily.  Then at the end of the summer when the garden is done we remove the frozen tomatos, cook them down, cool in the fridge, then retort vacuum seal and can them. 

We never waste from the garden this way and make easy work for canning retorts for a full canner batch. Then it becomes food storage for the winter months. All from our own garden or collected from the local Farmers Market. 

Here is some pictures of our Tomatillos this past summer. The picture shows them frozen just out of the freezer thus the frosty white look.

After we thaw the frozen tomatillo tomatos we will cook them down, add seasoning and cool the batch completely.  When the sauce has cooled we are able to put 16oz of the sauce in an 8oz pouch *remember retorts hold more liquids than solids*

They were then vacuum sealed in our Sammic 204T  then canned it at 10lbs of pressure for 45 minutes.  We want to make sure we start everything off cold so the entire mass comes up to heat at the same time.  We added 20 minutes to this process to make sure all bags were evenly cooked. 




This is the finished bags after they cooled to zero pressure for 30 plus minutes.  When we opened the canner the bags were still very hot but not so hot that they pushed out of the canner.  We put the hot bags in a sink of ice water. This process instantly shrinks up the retort bags and lets us see leaking bags easier.


We now have 16oz bags of Tomatillo tomatos to use in recipes until next year. 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please don't think I'm being a jerk, but I think you should know that the plural of tomato is "tomatoes," not "tomato's." You never add an apostrophe to pluralize anything. Adding an apostrophe indicates possession; "the tomato's red skin," or "the tomato's juicy flesh."

Also, and the plural of tomatillo is "tomatillos."

Again, no disrespect is intended.

Unknown said...

Heat sealers for packaging are invented to use heat to seal packaging materials. With the help of the "vacuum packaging machines,
", you will be able to keep the product secure that you want to send safely somewhere or to pack something extremely delicate.

jenna said...

I love the idea of my own garden to have fresh foods whenever I want them. That is until I realize I have absolutely no green thumb and kill anything I have tried planting. Thank goodness for farmers markets. I can still have fresh food without the hassle.

KM Grand Pack said...

I adulation the abstraction of my own garden to accept beginning foods whenever I wish them. That is until I apprehend I accept actually no blooming deride and annihilate annihilation I accept approved planting. Thank advantage for farmers markets. I can still accept beginning aliment after the hassle.
Counter pressure retort