Wednesday, May 27, 2009

I can can.

For my first canning attempt ever I decided to water bath can some BBQ sauce. So I got my stuff together.

What exactly is "liquid smoke" anyone know? Do I want to know? How do you make smoke liquid? The science of liquid smoke wasn't the weird part for me. The weird part was pouring in the molasses. A few weekends back I was at work and helped a fellow RN give a warm milk and molasses enema. Pouring the molasses into the pot of tomato sauce was kinda unnerving.


After I made the sauce I kept it simmering while prepping the water, jars and lids. Everything has to be 180 degrees F to prevent thermal shock (AKA glass shattering due to rapid temp changes). When everything was ready I poured in the sauce put the lid and ring on and got to boiling water. Because I have a pressure canner I left the pressure control thing off so steam would just escape. Around 10 min later I shut it all off, removed the lid and let them cool for about five more minutes. As I was getting ready to transfer the jars to a wood cutting board with a towel (to prevent thermal shock) I heard the lids one by one POP. Success!
There they are five jars of home made BBQ sauce ready for the pantry.

Next up: Pressure canning when I have something to actually can.

Speaking of cans thanks Uncle Jason for being such a good example to my son.

2 comments:

J and Kim said...

Whose this Jason guy? I'd like to meet him! Not a very good role model!

Anonymous said...

Nothing more satisfying than hearing that "POP"! Makes me smile!