Looking for some advice on using the Fowler natural preserver

[crabyMember]

Hi,

I’ve just taken receipt of my new preserver, and have kicked off making some preserved fruit, Passata and tomato pasta sauces. 

That said, I’m a bit confused about how cool to let the jars get before I put them into the preserver. When I made the syrup for the fruit I let it cool off before I filled the jars, as the manual indicates that if you put hot jars into the water it will raise the temperature and it will boil early.  It then says not to leave the fruit out for more than two hours before preserving.

With that in mind, what should I do with hot pasta sauce from the Thermomix?  I took it out and put it into a glass bowl to cool, but it still took about an hour before it was lukewarm, so I then put it in the jars and preserved it.

I’m interested to know about anyone’s experiences with this. Should I put the hot sauce in the jar and let it cool until I can handle the jar, or should I let it cool completely.  I’m still putting some lemon juice in each pasta bottle as its predominantly tomato, so I’m assuming that’s the safe thing to do.

Thanks very much,

Regards,

Dave

[SnagsMember]

We had a Vaccolla bottler growing up with all the tackle,we never followed the instructions religiously and no one died.(we didnt/wouldnt do meat or low acid stuff).We then just used to do passatta and pre-made vego pasta sauce in old passatta bottles,everything went in as hot as you can handle into a sterilised jar and got boiled for as long as we thought was enough (cant remember but at least 30 mins upto 60mins),but again no one died.

[SnagsMember]

This article says 30 min and let cool overnight in the water
http://www.goodfood.com.au/good-food/cook/how-to-make-passata-
20130218-2en3f.html

This one says a couple of hours
http://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes/passata

[crabyMember]

Hi Snags,

Thanks for the reply, I had a read of those articles and they were both quite interesting.  On this issue, Fowlers rang me this morning and said that whenever tomato is the predominant ingredient, its recommended to increase the acidity of the contents by adding either lemon juice or citric acid.  It doesn’t have to be stirred in, just put at the top of the jar. 

In relation to the cooling question, they recommend that the jars be cold before going into the water, so the heat doesn’t cause it to prematurely boil.  Apparently the preserver only heats to 92c, so if the jars are hot, the water is hot, it’s a hot day etc, it could cause it to boil.  Mine started to slowly bubble at about the 50 minute mark so I shut it off for the rest of the hour per the instructions, and they still all sealed just fine.  That said, the instructions say if it rapidly boils to turn it off if it does that for more than 5 minutes.  Next time I might let it go a bit longer and see what happens.

Given the TM heats the pasta sauce to 115c, on a hot day like last week it took two full hours to cool the jars to a warm temperature before I put them in.  I suppose I could put it in the fridge or covered on the window, but it looks like the bench for a couple of hours in the jars is the way to go.  They said that they recommend the food doesn’t stay out for longer than 2 hours, so I guess that fits in with what I did.

Thanks very much.

regards,

Dave

[AUSSIEDOWNUNDERParticipant]

If you can see your way clear get yourself a canner  they are the same as a fowlers only you can get higher temps and you can bottle things like sauce with the meat in it bottle fish dishes all the stuff a fowler wont do

I use mine for all bottling jobs now  I just use fowlers jars

Paster sauce jars jam jars ect

[calliecatParticipant]

had a canner for 3yrs now, – still need the gumption to actually do something with it –
but I will get there one day 🙂
when I;m really really desparate, then I’ll wonder why I procrastinated so long – isn’t that usually what happens?? 😉

[SnagsMember]

Living in the sub tropics the need to preserve isnt as desperate,things grow nearly all year…………..In Melbourne you had to preserve tomatoes because of a short season and a glut here you just have a few plants going all year……………..I freeze excess beans if I get them but most of the time I just keep planting more…………I also juice all citrus and freeze it and freeze whole berries when theres heaps………..I even have frozen capsicums with tops cut off and seeded ready for stuffing.

[AUSSIEDOWNUNDERParticipant]

Somebody on another forum mentioned bottling potato

Has anybody tried it is it worth while how do they taste

[ballamaraKeymaster]

Interesting, I have never heard of potatoes being bottled.

[calliecatParticipant]

canning yes, have heard of it, but you can only pressure can them, –

[SnagsMember]

You can buy canned potatoes but they dont taste that great.I saw on a cooking show on SBS they used dried potatoes in some South American dishes maybe that would be worth trying if you had a glut..

[AUSSIEDOWNUNDERParticipant]

I have a pressure canner and a big bag of spuds will try a few and report back

[foodieMember]

Potatoes store well enough not to preserve them.  I grow my own and never buy any. Sometimes I might run out for a month or so, and that’s when I use Jerusalem Artichokes as an alternative (generally mid spring when I have a hungry gap).  I don’t think the taste of canned potatoes warrants the effort.  If I really felt the need to preserve surplus, I think I would dry them.

[foodieMember]

How did the pressure canning go, AUSSIEDOWNUNDER ??

[AUSSIEDOWNUNDERParticipant]

Still in bottles haven’t opened them yet

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