Comments on: Tomato Canning Correction

By: Brandee L

Brandee L — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:37:04 +0000

I recently had a discussion with my friend about the processing time of tomatoes in their own juice. She was quite insistent that my pints should only process for 45 min. And that would be the reason I’m having trouble getting my jars to seal. I have adequate headspace, wiped the rims diligently, and processed them according to Ball’s 100th anniversary ed. But about 1/4 of my jars don’t seal.
I’m pretty certain that processing time has nothing to do with it. Thoughts?

By: April

April — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:38:25 +0000

Hi! I just started to have an interest in canning and pickling recently, and this blog has been a great help! I was intrigued by the great tomato debate, and I found this information from the Univ. of Minnesota on the increased processing times:

“Some new tomato varieties are more solid or have less liquid. It thus take longer to transfer heat to the coldest point in the jar and kill the microorganisms present.”

Happy canning!

By: Erin @ The Skinny Gourmet

Erin @ The Skinny Gourmet — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:37:02 +0000

I am just getting into canning, and like your first commenter, am a little fascinated by the “why” questions of it. My first instinct was that because the Ph of tomato juice is acidic, and much more acidic than neutral water, tomatoes packed in juice should be safer than those packed in water. But I suppose it has more to do with the time to heating. But now I’m wondering if it has to do with the point at which those liquids boil or something?

A great mystery.

Anyway, thanks for the excellent blog! The step by step pictures are so helpful to beginners.

By: daisy mae

daisy mae — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:40:50 +0000

I have my grandmothers Kerr Home Canning Book – from 1955. Out of curiousity – I looked up the tomato processing time. It makes absolutely no distcintion between sauce, water packed, juice packed – pretty much any type of tomatoes – the 1955 book says to process for 35 minutes. The only exception is tomato juice – which they say you only have to process for 10 minutes. The only difference I see with the tomato juice is that they ask you to boil it before packing.

Obviously this info comes from guidelines from 50+ years ago, and is no longer USDA approved. But it does make me wonder – since I use this 1955 book as my “canning bible” – I wonder how much canning that I do no longer meets USDA approval.

By: JillyB

JillyB — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:49:15 +0000

To support Emily’s comment, I crush and heat my tomatoes per the USDA guidelines. The crushing/heating part doesn’t add much time to the whole process, and I save loads of time on the boiling water processing time for the jars. Here is the recipe I follow: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_03/tomato_crushed.html

By: Tim M

Tim M — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:30:52 +0000

The USDA guide says that you can steam process some types of canned tomatoes. You have a pressure canner, so I was wondering how you feel about canning tomatoes in it? I’m considering picking one up myself.

80 minutes of processing sounds like a big amount of time to monopolize a burner on the stove, so it seems like about 15 minutes in a pressure canner would be more convenient and also easier on the tomatoes.

By: Emily

Emily — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:17:23 +0000

My understanding is that the tomatoes packed in their own juice are usually heated through on the stove, then packed hot into jars. True raw-pack tomatoes are put into the jars at room temp, so they take longer to get up to boiling inside the jars.

By: jessica

jessica — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 05:10:37 +0000

wondering what to do….my first time canning broiled tomatoes and peppers and i put 1tbl. per quart instead of 2 and only processed in water bath for 30min. do i need to throw it all out???

By: GrassNaps

GrassNaps — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:14:51 +0000

Okay, so if I processed them for 45 minutes two days ago and shelved them, could I just pop them back in for another 40 minutes and call it good? Or would I need to re-process them for the full 85 minutes?

By: Urban Hippy

Urban Hippy — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:19:23 +0000

Actually, there was a great sickness from a whole bunch of canned goods back in the 70s when it got really trendy. And I expect another one any time time because it is once again trendy, and people are not doing the proper reading before getting into it.

The mistake made here is one reason I never list processing times on my website, and one reason why I ALWAYS re-read the appropriate material in my book at the beginning of every canning season.

You should NEVER trust a website like this one or like mine. Or your granny for that matter.