Canning roasted tomatoes with garlic

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Havenhills

Assistant Cook
Joined
Sep 18, 2022
Messages
1
Location
Shropshire, England
Hi everyone, my wife has just tried to pressure can 4 quart jars of tomatoes which she had roasted earlier with garlic and some salt. When she removed from the canner, the jars a) had not sealed and had lost about a quarter inch of juice into the pressure vessel and b) the core of the jars was kind of thick with a more liquid salsa around the outside. We shall freeze these! There was some olive oil in the mix due to the roasting. Do you think that might explain why the canning failed? Thank you!
 
Hi everyone, my wife has just tried to pressure can 4 quart jars of tomatoes which she had roasted earlier with garlic and some salt. When she removed from the canner, the jars a) had not sealed and had lost about a quarter inch of juice into the pressure vessel and b) the core of the jars was kind of thick with a more liquid salsa around the outside. We shall freeze these! There was some olive oil in the mix due to the roasting. Do you think that might explain why the canning failed? Thank you!
Here are some general resources. https://nchfp.uga.edu/tips/summer/home_preserv_tomatoes.html
a) losing liquid during pressure canning is called siphoning. 1/4th inch is not a lot and is still safe to store and eat.
b) In the US, following NCHFP or university extension tested recipes for pressure canning, using oil is not recommended with some very few exceptions of tested recipes with oil in them. The UK may have different safety rules? Oil does not usually cause a lid sealing failure, but it can, oil is slippery, rises to the top, can get between the lid and the jar. It might be the issue.

This is the more worrisome problem: the core of the jars was kind of thick with a more liquid salsa around the outside. The food in the jar should be a consistent thickness/viscosity so that the liquid/water/juice and solids can move freely around inside the jar and be heated evenly. https://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/nchfp/factsheets/heatprocessingbackgrounder.html

Tomatoes need vinegar/citric acid/lemon juice for acidification--that will be in a tested recipe. Garlic is generally not safe for canning with exceptions, usually dehydrated garlic as seasoning might be added in a tested recipe. You'll have to check for that.

Good Luck, tomatoes roasted with garlic sounds delicious!
 
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