Crops & Breeds

🫙 Canning

9 goods · what's in each, ready windows and shelf life, from the app's own pantry clock

Goods

• Jam · keeps ~1 year — High sugar and high acid — eighteen months is comfortable. It doesn't really go off; it darkens and stiffens, and a jam that didn't set is a syrup, not a failure.
  What's in it: Crushed fruit, sugar (about three-quarters the fruit's weight, or the pectin's own ratio) and lemon juice, boiled to 220°F or the wrinkle test. Hot-packed, water-bath 10 minutes.
• Jelly · keeps ~1 year — Give it a day or two to finish setting before you judge it. Eighteen months on a cool dark shelf.
  What's in it: Fruit juice dripped through a jelly bag — no squeezing — boiled with sugar and pectin to the set point. Water-bath 10 minutes; give it a day to finish setting.
• Pickles · ready to taste in 21–28 days · keeps ~1 year — Sealed the same day, but give the jars three or four weeks before the first one is opened — the brine needs the time to get all the way in. That wait is why people think home pickles are bland.
  What's in it: Cucumbers packed with dill and garlic, covered with a hot 1:1 brine of 5% vinegar and water plus 1 tbsp pickling salt per quart. Water-bath 10–15 minutes; wait three weeks.
• Refrigerator pickles · ready to taste in 2–7 days · keeps ~2 months — Never processed, so never shelf-stable — the fridge and a couple of months, whatever the jar looks like. Ready in a few days.
  What's in it: Sliced cucumbers, onion and dill under equal parts vinegar and water with a spoon each of salt and sugar, poured hot or cold. Lid on, fridge; ready in 2–7 days, never processed.
• Pickled eggs · ready to taste in 7–14 days · keeps ~3 months — REFRIGERATOR ONLY. There is no tested home process for shelf-stable pickled eggs — a few months in the cold is the honest limit, and a week or two before they're worth eating.
  What's in it: Peeled hard-boiled eggs in a hot brine of vinegar, water, salt, a little sugar and pickling spice (beet juice for the pink ones). REFRIGERATOR ONLY: a week to be worth eating, gone in three months.
• Tomato sauce · keeps ~1 year — Tomatoes sit right on the acid line, which is why every tested recipe adds lemon juice or citric acid whatever the variety. A year for best colour and flavour.
  What's in it: Tomatoes cooked down with onion, garlic and basil, milled. Every pint gets 1 tbsp bottled lemon juice (or 1/4 tsp citric acid) before the lid — the tested rule, whatever the variety. Water-bath 35–40 minutes.
• Salsa · keeps ~1 year — Follow a tested recipe as written — the ratio of peppers and onions to tomatoes is the acidity, not a matter of taste. Improvise in the bowl, not in the jar.
  What's in it: Tomatoes, onions, peppers, cilantro, vinegar or lime and salt — in the ratio of a TESTED recipe, because the vegetables-to-acid ratio is the safety. Water-bath 15 minutes.
• Pressure-canned meat · keeps ~2 years — Low-acid food is a PRESSURE canner's job — a boiling-water bath cannot make meat, beans or plain vegetables safe. Two years of good eating, and a bulging or unsealed lid goes out unopened.
  What's in it: Meat cubed, raw or browned, packed loosely with 1 tsp salt per quart and 1-inch headspace (raw pack needs no liquid). PRESSURE canner only: 75 min pints, 90 min quarts, at 10–15 psi.
• Apple butter · keeps ~1 year — Long, low and stirred — and it scorches the moment you stop paying attention. Keeps as well as jam does.
  What's in it: Apples cooked down with cider, sugar, cinnamon and clove, milled, then simmered low and stirred for hours until it mounds on a spoon. Water-bath 10 minutes.

Shelf life runs from the READY date, not the day it was made — a kraut started in August and ready in September keeps its months from September.