1st attempt at canning...umm...WHAT?!

Hey everyone...S here!

If you couldn't tell by the previous post, A is into canning foods. I decided that I'd give it a try...I mean it's got to be more productive than playing Candy Crush on my tablet and watching Disney Jr with the kiddos all day, right?!

So, like most of my new ventures I don't have the foresight to start off on a small project to see if I dig it or not...nope, I dove in to the deep end...with blood thirsty canning sharks, with an open bleeding wound...just tempting the damn savages to take a bite. And would you know it, they did...go figure. I bought 50 pounds of apples and 25 pounds of tomatoes...first mistake. WAY TOO MUCH PRODUCE FOR A FIRST TIMER!!! I've been canning for 2 full days now and I am 1/2 way through both the tomatoes and the apples...and I have VERY little to show for my efforts.

 

The first recipe I started with was Apple Juice. Sounds simple, right? I thought so too. The recipe is literally 2 ingredients. How do you fuck that up?! I don't know...but I did. Lets take a walk down memory lane and recall the last 2 days of my apple juice making adventure...come, join me.

First, the recipe calls for 24 pounds of apples and 8 cups of water...and this is supposed to yield 6 quarts of juice. I don't want to spoil the ending, so I won't tell you how much juice I got...nothing worse than a premature climax to a great ride...right?! I was hesitant because I thought that sounded like an awful lot of apples for very little juice. But my family isn't big on Apple Pie or Apple Butter...and I am going to make Apple Sauce...so I thought, the kids will love them some home made Apple Juice, so why not...I do have 50 pounds of apples I have to burn through after all. Finding the recipe was the only thing I thought I did right. After that I derailed at every turn.

 

I went out and purchased a 12 qt stock pot because I didn't have anything bigger than a 6 qt pot in my house. So I am chopping away at the apples and thinking something like, "If I can chop these bad boys this fast, I'll be done in no time. I'm such a natural with picking up new crafts and hobbies. I'll be teaching A a few tricks in 3 weeks when I go visit her...blah, blah, blah..."

 

So an hour into chopping and my new stock pot is about 2/3 full and I weigh it because I don't want to cut more than the 24 pounds required for the recipe. At this point I am literally thinking that I've cut 23 pounds worth of apples and I only have a few left to go...So I put it on the scale and it registers 8 pounds...I'm just going to pause there because it needs to sink in...8 God damned pounds in an hour and I've already used up 66% of my brand new stock pot...well shit.

 

 

It looks like I'm going to have to make 2 batches of this stuff to use all 24 pounds. Fast forward an hour and I finally have 1/2 of the apples needed for the full recipe cooking on the stove.

 

 

Now I need to dive in to chopping the 2nd half of the fruit. Ugh!

 

 

I want to give everyone a brief glimpse into my morning shopping spree in order to get all of the equipment and ingredients needed for this little project. I went to the store and was getting everything needed when my 6 week old baby starts to have a melt down in the store. People are going out of there way to see who is murdering the baby in the home goods section (that may be a bit of an over exaggeration...but we all know that's what it feels like when you're in the middle of it). And for some reason WalMart decided to have a secret scavenger hunt for cheese cloth that day...lucky me. And wouldn't you know it, I lost the scavenger hunt. I couldn't find it ANYWHERE!

 

 

So I had to Jimmy Rig a strainer lined with coffee filters suspended over a bowl using wooden spoons. I'm kind of proud of my handy work to be honest.

 

Oh, and the 24 pound BS has now come back to haunt me, again. I can't just create 1 contraption for draining juice...nope that won't hold all of the apples, so I need to set up 3 separate draining pots...fantastic!

After both batches of apples were finished they had to drip in the coffee filter set up for a couple hours before I could begin the actual canning process. I took Dad-o out to dinner and came back fully expecting to see 6 quarts or more of juice resting in the bowls and do you know how much I got...you know what...still too premature for the climax...er, reveal...

At this point I still need to reheat the juice so I put it back of the stove and start to prep the cans. Once the juice is heated I fill the cans and start to boil them for 10 minutes.

There was an extra 2 inches of space between the top of the water and the rim of my MASSIVE canning pot, but wouldn't you know, it still managed to boil over. Yep, this girl even struggled with boiling water on this adventure...(this is my attempt at a picture showing the water running down the front of my stove, all over the stove top, down my cupboard, and creating Lake CanCan on the floor of my kitchen.

So with all of this work, 4 hours of chopping, multiple batches, the screaming child creating a panicked straining contraption, the new lake in my kitchen, and do you know how much juice I made?!

 

2 FUCKING QUARTS!!! I essentially just spent $12 on 2 damned quarts of apple juice. I'll be honest, I haven't even tasted it yet. I'm a bit nervous what I will do if they taste horrible. If that happens I may end up in the fetal position slowly rocking back and forth in the middle of my kitchen mumbling incoherently to myself...just saying. My hope is that I've made an apple juice concentrate inadvertently and I can stretch those 2 quarts into the 6 quarts that they are actually supposed to be. So for the mean time I'll just look upon those 2 lonely quarts with disgust and know that somewhere along the line I'm the chick that shit the bed (pardon the expression) with a 2 ingredient recipe. In the end I've determined that I will likely not be purchasing apples in bulk for canning purposes in the future.

 Thanks for joining me on my adventure!!! I hope one of us enjoyed it :)

~ S