"Ted Mittelstaedt" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> I did not want to get into this but I see that I will have to. The
> following
> tomato varieties are known to be low acid: Ace, Ace 55VF, Beefmaster
> Hybrid,
> Big Early Hybrid, Big Girl, Big Set, Burpee VF Hybrid, Cal Ace, Delicious,
> Fireball, Garden State, Royal Chico, and San Marzano. There are others
> as well. The majority of the more traditional home-garden raised tomatos
> are not low acid, however.
>
> The USDA recommends pressure canning for tomato products. Their
> published recipies ALSO recommend acidification of tomato products
> EVEN IF pressure canned. See the following:
>
> http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publication...n_guide_03.pdf
>
> "...Recommendation: Use of a pressure canner will result in a higher
> quality and more nutritious canned tomato products..."
>

I have seen the publication -- which is available from the NCHFP which I
mentioned in my post.

Note that the reason the publication suggest pressure canning is not a food
safety issue, but based on the quality of the finished product.

> Note that the USDA guide does not recommend -against- BWB
> canning of tomato products (like Salsa). They merely recommend
> pressure canning instead of BWB canning of tomato products.
>
> In other words, they are going to wait until the jury is in, you might
> say.

I don't thing that's what is going on. I think they have found that
pressure canned tomato items are of a higher quality and vitamin content
than BWB processed ones -- not that they are waiting to see if there are
safety problems with the BWB salsa.

>
> The entire guide is up he
>
> http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publication...ions_usda.html
>
>
> USDA recommends citric acid or lemon juice specifically, instead of
> vinegar, because of taste.

Look at the salsa recipe on page 3-16 of the publication. You will see that
it specifically calls for vinegar.

>
> The NCHFP site does have a specific blurb about Salsa, they explicitly
> exclude low-acid pressure-canned Salsa recipies from their list, and
> they also mention that there are other ingredients that must be tested.
> Basically they are saying that if your going to go the acidification
> route,
> then while you can reduce Ph with adding acid, not all ingredients are
> permeable to the acid that you add, that is why they recommend against
> any Salsa recipies they haven't tested the ingredients list on.

Yes -- but that doesn't mean that the salsa recipes they include are in any
way unsafe.

> Personally I don't understand what the fuss is all about. Pressure
> canners
> are cheap and easy to operate, I have 2 of them both of which cost
> less than $10 from Goodwill. (granted, I kept an eye out for them and
> it took a while before they showed up) If you pressure can your Salsa
> you can use whatever recipie you like, acid or no acid, just as long as
> you pressure can it for the time called for, for the longest time
> ingredient
> in it.

I have a pressure canner, and I use it for low-acid items I can, not
including salsa -- for which I use tested recipes and BWB processing. I
find it so much more of a hassle to use, and the BWB processing so much
easier, that I do BWB whenever it's safe to do so.

In case you are wondering why I find pressure canning to be more of a
hassle, it's primarily related to the amount of time it takes. I fill the
jars, put them in the pressure canner and put on the lid. It takes at least
five minutes (and I'm betting it's more like 10) for the water in the canner
to come to a boil. Then steam has to be expelled -- for my canner, for 7
minutes. The the pressure thingie goes on. Then I have to wait for the
pressure to reach the right level -- another 5 or 10 minutes. Then it's 10
minutes of processing (for tomatoes). Then at least an hour for the canner
to cool down so I can remove the jars.

Total time -- at least an hour and 22 minutes.

I tend to do canning marathon session where I can 3 or 4 products at a time.
When I BWB can I prepare the next item while jars are being processed.
Frequently it's less than half an hour between removing the first set of
jars from the BWB and putting the next set in.

Anny