On Jul 17, 4:44*am, "Ted Mittelstaedt" > wrote:
> "Anny Middon" > wrote in message
>
> ...
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> > "Ted Mittelstaedt" > wrote in message
> ...
>
> > > Your going to have to correct me if your favorite salsa recipie is
> > > different, but most of them I've seen spec tomato chunks. *In short,
> > > the finished product has significantly sized chunks of tomato in
> > > it. *ANY of these recipies should be pressure canned regardless
> > > of any acidification that the recipie may specify or regardless of
> > > any boiling water canning that is specified. *Tomatos are
> > > now known to be borderline low-acid, and the problem is that
> > > in a recipie where they survive intact, you can have regions within
> > > the tomato chunk that the acidification hasn't penetrated.
>
> > I'm going to disagree with you here, Ted. *There are salsa recipes that
> are
> > safe for BWB canning at the NCHFP website, some (most) of which call for
> > chopped tomatoes. *I can't imagine those folks would leave any recipes up
> at
> > their site if they weren't sure they were safe.
>
> 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..."
>
> 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.
>
> The entire guide is up he
>
> http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publication...ions_usda.html
>
> > Think of the tomatoes in salsa as being similar to the cucumber chunks or
> > slices in pickles. *One-day recipes for pickles call for a significant
> > amount of vinegar. *So do safe for BWB salsas.
>
> USDA recommends citric acid or lemon juice specifically, instead of
> vinegar, because of taste.
>
> 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.
>
> 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 decided not to buy a new pressure cooker because they're too
expensive and not very large. I'll keep an eye out for old ones at
Goodwill.