Gonna' try my hand at putting up some Salsa today

[FlyingClayDisk]

So the wife and I have been getting more into canning stuff.  We've done water bath canning for a long time, and I had a pressure cooker for pressure canning, but it wasn't one of the fancy ones so I never really trusted it.  Well, I finally broke down and bought the gold standard for canning, an American pressure canner.  My future plans are to get into canning things like meats and fish and other low acid things which require pressure canning (water bath doesn't get hot enough).  This weekend though, I'm just going to do some Salsa.  I didn't realize it, but Salsa is actually pretty tricky to can because it's right on the borderline of 4.6 PH which is the decision point between water bath and pressure canning.  Above 4.6 PH must be pressure canned, and below 4.6 PH can be safely water bath canned.  Add altitude into the mix and things get even more complicated.  We're at about 6,500 ft ASL, so I can't ignore altitude.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to putting up some decent Salsa.  The Hatch chilies are in season right now, and those things ROCK, so I've got a bunch of super hot ones roasted up and ready to go.  I'm looking forward to it!  This way, I can have some delicious homemade Salsa this winter.

On a side note, about 10 years ago I canned some steak.  It was the very first time I'd ever done it.  I was downstairs the other day cleaning out some of our long expired store bought canned goods and came across my canned meat.  I figured for sure it would be a death sentence to eat it, but on a lark I decided to check the seals and they were still all good.  Soooo, I popped the lid on one to give it the smell test.  Surprisingly, it smelled like I'd just taken it off the stove fresh.  I was still too much of a skeerdy-cat to actually taste it due to it being so old, but I guess I did it right (amazingly).  Gave me a little more confidence.  Now, with the new canning setup, I can hopefully put up some beef and other stuff like spaghetti sauce with meat and some of my Rocky Mountain Madness competition chili.  I can get (18) pint jars or (8) quart jars in the canner at a time, so I should be able to put up a decent amount of "vittles" for winter.  Plus, we're looking at possibly retiring to Alaska, so I need to get my shit together when it comes to canning.  All sorts of awesome stuff to can up there!  I didn't know this, but you can actually can King Crab and Dungenous crab too.

Anyway, wish me luck.  Maybe I can keep from blowin' the joint up!

[Tecate]

Good luck with your project FCD!

I have made quite a few batches of salsa, from mild to what we call 7E or 7Echo, EMS code for life threatening burns. Grew everything myself, including a couple of batches of green salsa using tomatillos.

I’ve also done dill pickles, pickled jalapeño, yellow string beans, garlic etc. and only water bath. I’ve never tried the pressure cooker method but I know that it can be dangerous!

My father used to use Mom’s pressure cooker as a still when I was a kid and I remember how crazy dangerous that was.

Enjoy!

Tecate

[UltraBudgie]

This sounds great, have fun and don't blow yourself up! Or create a salsa-monster.

I've only done boiling water canning, for tomatoes, which have enough acidity to work well. I never considered that pressure canning would allow for a wider range of pH!  Hmm, the vistas open...

Canned meat aside, you seem to have excellent taste in stews. I imagine your chili is a real neck-sweater.

[FlyingClayDisk]

This sounds great, have fun and don't blow yourself up! Or create a salsa-monster.

I've only done boiling water canning, for tomatoes, which have enough acidity to work well. I never considered that pressure canning would allow for a wider range of pH!  Hmm, the vistas open...

Canned meat aside, you seem to have excellent taste in stews. I imagine your chili is a real neck-sweater.

Yeah, Rocky Mountain Madness won a few competitions.  The secret ingredients are cane sugar and tequila.  I kind of got out of the competition thing though, just takes too much time.  Plus, anymore it's pretty expensive to do and the awards are really just bragging rights.  That's fun for a while, but after a while it just gets too expensive and time consuming (i.e. travel, lodging, food costs, fuel, entrance fees, bureaucratic BS, etc.)  And, now many of the competitions require you to make way more than the old competitions used to.  Used to just be chili-heads who showed up for these things, now thousands show up for an essentially free lunch.

[argentus]

So the wife and I have been getting more into canning stuff.  We've done water bath canning for a long time, and I had a pressure cooker for pressure canning, but it wasn't one of the fancy ones so I never really trusted it.  Well, I finally broke down and bought the gold standard for canning, an American pressure canner.  My future plans are to get into canning things like meats and fish and other low acid things which require pressure canning (water bath doesn't get hot enough).  This weekend though, I'm just going to do some Salsa.  I didn't realize it, but Salsa is actually pretty tricky to can because it's right on the borderline of 4.6 PH which is the decision point between water bath and pressure canning.  Above 4.6 PH must be pressure canned, and below 4.6 PH can be safely water bath canned.  Add altitude into the mix and things get even more complicated.  We're at about 6,500 ft ASL, so I can't ignore altitude.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to putting up some decent Salsa.  The Hatch chilies are in season right now, and those things ROCK, so I've got a bunch of super hot ones roasted up and ready to go.  I'm looking forward to it!  This way, I can have some delicious homemade Salsa this winter.

On a side note, about 10 years ago I canned some steak.  It was the very first time I'd ever done it.  I was downstairs the other day cleaning out some of our long expired store bought canned goods and came across my canned meat.  I figured for sure it would be a death sentence to eat it, but on a lark I decided to check the seals and they were still all good.  Soooo, I popped the lid on one to give it the smell test.  Surprisingly, it smelled like I'd just taken it off the stove fresh.  I was still too much of a skeerdy-cat to actually taste it due to it being so old, but I guess I did it right (amazingly).  Gave me a little more confidence.  Now, with the new canning setup, I can hopefully put up some beef and other stuff like spaghetti sauce with meat and some of my Rocky Mountain Madness competition chili.  I can get (18) pint jars or (8) quart jars in the canner at a time, so I should be able to put up a decent amount of "vittles" for winter.  Plus, we're looking at possibly retiring to Alaska, so I need to get my shit together when it comes to canning.  All sorts of awesome stuff to can up there!  I didn't know this, but you can actually can King Crab and Dungenous crab too.

Anyway, wish me luck.  Maybe I can keep from blowin' the joint up!

You had me at Hatch chilis.   

I am going to make green tomatillo sauce tomorrow.    It's a two hour process, if I'm lucky.    I get where you are at, and we are in the same place.   I am making my own sausage, and loving it.   Haven't quite advanced to the fermeted stage and truly looking forward to that; it's the pinnacle of sausage-making for me.    I look forward to next week, where my buddy is going to kill and package a pig.   I am going to make black pudding, and not just a little bit of it. Nope.   Probably about 50 feet of it.   That's an odd measure of sausage isn't it?   Casing length, rather than pounds.   More measurable in my world.   

You were right to acquire the gold standard of pressure cooker.   You want to go all in on these kind of endeavors, and really learn them and lean into them, and in doing so, you can really benefit those around you.    Otherwise, it ends up a project on a shelf for someday.  That someday-wish-I-woulda sometimes doesn't come.    I like using natural hog sausage casings, but I'm conducting an experiment with freezing artificial sausage casings, and their relative elasticity after thawing, and what rates to do either, and if various solutions benefit the artificial casing.   

I wouldn't mind a bit and would likely contribute if you began a homestead-ish country cooking recipe thread.    I can't wait to unveil my jerkey recipe for low-quality beef (or other meat).

[FlyingClayDisk]

You had me at Hatch chilis.   

...  

I wouldn't mind a bit and would likely contribute if you began a homestead-ish country cooking recipe thread.    I can't wait to unveil my jerkey recipe for low-quality beef (or other meat).

Perhaps I'll so just that here on DI.

I've done lots of preserved meats over the years, but generally these are brined and then smoked.  I'm a bit of a neophyte with canning.  I understand the whole sausage preservation process, including things like hams and so on.  Canning is a new world for me.  I'm still learning.

[argentus]

Perhaps I'll so just that here on DI.

I've done lots of preserved meats over the years, but generally these are brined and then smoked.  I'm a bit of a neophyte with canning.  I understand the whole sausage preservation process, including things like hams and so on.  Canning is a new world for me.  I'm still learning.

There is a LOT of knowledge between the two of us and others here on DI, which needs to be shared.   I think this is a good thing for it to be shared.  The world is changing rapidly.    I was shocked to find that only one out of a dozen of my friends truly knew how to make fire.   Blown away.

[AngryOldBrewer]

Haven't really done much canning, but certainly have done a ton of fermentation projects, including salsa and hot sauce. However, my interest is now elevated as I have always wanted to do my own cured pork back for pork porchetta and bacon! Perhaps you could share some pointers. I'd be happy to share some of my hot sauce and other fermentation recipes in kind.

[FlyingClayDisk]

"Curing" is a very complicated process, and it involves substances which most people will recoil from (if they read the woke news)

There are two curing processes; wet and dry.  Wet is a function of weight, and dry is a function (one of measure).

I have done both, but I will tell you the "pump" method is very complex and you need large quantities of meat to do it.  This process measures saline percentages aftter (x) amount of minutes and hours.

I've learned the ways of many of the Alaskan fishermen for preserving fish (i.e. salmon), and I've traded many a fish for the smoked variety for transport (like tons of the stuff).  However, even that process is very carefully administered, under very controlled conditions.

I preserve pork sausage, summer sausage (antelope, deer and Elk)...and I'm still worried, every single time I do it.  Refrigerated...no problem.  Non-refrigerated...way more concerned.

[FlyingClayDisk]

Well, the Salsa came out really great!  I've made tens of thousands of gallons of fresh Salsa before, but this was my first time making it for canning.  I wound up making about twice as much as I thought I was going to make.  The recipe I was using was for (12) pints and I wound up with (23) pints.  Not quite sure how that happened, but I read several other people had the same issue with this recipe.  I didn't skin my tomatoes (which the recipe called for), but I can't imagine that made such a big difference.  My peppers were larger, but I cut down on the number of them.  Maybe I didn't cook it down enough.  I don't know, but I'm not going to complain about having too much Salsa because I love, love, LOVE the stuff!

Between the wife and I, we polished off 1.5 pints yesterday, and we gave a couple away to the widow down the road.  Still wound up with more than what I planned on the shelf.

Salsa had good heat, but it could have been hotter.  I used Jalapeno, Serrano and Habanero peppers, about (30) total.  I probably could have gone harder on the Habaneros, but I was worried about it being too hot (for the wife; she doesn't like it as hot as I do).  Plus, Habaneros have such a unique flavor, I didn't want to overpower the rest of the Salsa with the Habanero flavor.  I was kind of surprised how much the seeding and heating of the peppers knocks down the heat.  I didn't try one of the raw Habaneros until after I got done; they were a lot milder than the ones we grow.  I didn't have any of our Scorpions or Habaneros from this year...some critter decided to eat every last one of them right when they got ripe (bastage)!  Came out the other morning expecting to pick peppers and all that was left was a bunch of plant stubs.  Only got to eat (2) of the Scorpions this year, and boy-howdy, were those puppies ever HOT!!  Holy Cow!  Shame I didn't have any left for the Salsa.  Oh well, there's always next year I guess.

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Haven't really done much canning, but certainly have done a ton of fermentation projects, including salsa and hot sauce. However, my interest is now elevated as I have always wanted to do my own cured pork back for pork porchetta and bacon! Perhaps you could share some pointers. I'd be happy to share some of my hot sauce and other fermentation recipes in kind.

Probably the easiest thing to start off with is what I call Canadian Bacon (it's really ham though). 

Go down to the store and get yourself a pork tenderloin (tenderloin, not loin; loins are too big).  Also get yourself some Morton's Tender Quick, and some cane sugar.

Recipe
(1) Pork Tenderloin
(1) Tbsp per pound - Tender Quick
(1) Tsp per pound - Sugar

Rub the mixture into the pork loin and place it in either a glass bowl (NOT metallic) or a food grade plastic bag.  I use a Pyrex bread/meatloaf pan.  Age it in the refrigerator for (5) days.  After aging, soak it in a pan of water for 30 minutes (helps cut the salt flavor).  After rinsing you can either slice it and fry it up, or what I do is smoke the whole tenderloin.  It's fabulous, just off-the-rails good!  The great thing about this recipe is, it's really hard to screw it up, and nothing is better for positive motivation than having a first curing attempt come out really well.  If you smoke it, you don't even have to cook it further; just slice it up and eat it.  (You can thank me later).

This is pretty much the recipe I started out with for curing meats.  You can also do a similar thing with fish like Salmon or Trout.  I've moved away from Tender Quick these days though.  Now that I've got a lot more experience with curing and charcuterie, I go directly the the Prague #1 and #2 (pink salt) curing methods.  It works a lot better, but it's a lot more complicated and you need to know what you're doing, and you really only get that from experience.  I usually smoke everything I cure.  I love making smoked summer sausage, and my latest ones have been venison and buffalo, and antelope and venison.  I've got a whole trashbag full of pheasants from last season in the freezer, and a bunch of antelope left over so I'm thinking my next attempt will be a pheasant and antelope smoked Summer Sausage.  This stuff is so good your socks will just shoot straight off your feet when you eat some!  (I made the mistake of giving some to my neighbor and now he pesters me about once a week asking if I've made any more.  LOL!  I tell him to go hunt some of his own game for cripes sakes!).