On Sep 28, 8:41*am, wrote:
> I'm new to canning so I apologize for dumb questions in advance.......want
> to can some tomatoes and the majority of recipe's I've found say
> specifically *to use bottled lemon juice, none that I have seen say why that
> is. *I ran across these instructions today * * *http://www.pickyourown.org/pressure_..._tomatoes.htm* * * * * * * *and
> they say fresh or bottled is ok. *I also am canning some salsa and I can not
> find one recipe that includes fresh lemon juice. *I would prefer to use
> fresh lemon juice, but not sure it is safe........TIA

Bottled lemon juice is 10% acid and twice as acid as vinegar. Recipes
are formulated specifically to be safe with the proper ph level. In
using home squeezed lemons, you have no idea what there acid level is.
If the recipe is a wobbler on the safety side, your recipe may not be
safe if you use fresh lemons. The rule is is it says bottle lemon
juice, use it for safety.
Since I do not want to have lemon juice flavor many things I can, I
just use powdered citric acid which is much more acid but does NOT
have the flavor component that lemon juice does.
If you are going to be doing canning, get yourself some citric acid.
It is cheap and keeps forever if you keep it dry.
Jim in So. Calif.