Katherine is doing crushed tomatoes up here on the farm using the new hotplate that we got a month ago. The hotplate was a bit disappointing for hot-water bath because it takes so long to heat a full canner load of loaded jars! We are proceeding with the general recipe found at NCHFP, but it agrees with the ball blue book recipe as well. We did not add any acid to this first batch because we had mostly heirloom tomatoes which are known to be high acid. If we do Roma tomatoes, perhaps we should add some citric acid.
However, for pressure canning, it is perfect! We are at an altitude of 1150 ft here and the books say we should be doing quarts of tomatoes about 15 mins at 15 lbs pressure. With the 15lb weight on, the hotplate heats up the canner to pressure in about 15-20 mins (of course, the time will depend on how hot the jars were when you put them in as well as how hot the water in the canner was before you put the jars in). Then we vented for 7 mins, placed the weight on and started the 15 min countdown. We adjusted the heat control from 12 (max) to 8 to maintain the 15 psi. The hotplate had no trouble maintaining the pressure.
Katherine prepared and canned 7 quart jars and 6 1.5 pint jars of tomatoes today! They all sealed with no mishaps or problems.
A total of 11.5 quarts today!
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