Canning Tomato Sauce - Boiling - Troubleshooting

[MrsHoneyB]

Hi, I made tomato sauce last night and followed the recipe for the tomato basil sauce found in the Ball Blue Book (https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=basil-garlic-tomato-sauce).


I did everything perfectly with the exception of one thing: The filled jars had been boiling in my water canner for about 30 minutes and then I noticed the water was getting low so I added a bit more water. Stupid me didn't add boiling water but room temp water so the water stopped boiling for approximately one minute then went straight back to boiling. After that, I even added on five more minutes of boiling just to be safe. Am I in the clear here or do I really need to reprocess my tomato sauce?

 

[karadekoolaid]

You won´t have problem for 1 minute not boiling, don´t worry.
I´ve made over 3,000,000 jars of conserves, sauces, chutneys, pickles, salsas and jams, and I can assure you that 1 minute will make no difference.

 

[blissful]

I agree with what karadekoolaid said, once it came back to boiling, then start the timing, and one minute won't make a difference.

My water in the waterbath canner takes more than a minute, sometimes twenty minutes to get back to boiling after putting the hot jars full of sauce in there. I just start timing at that point.

 

[MrsHoneyB]

So the only problem is that once it came back to boiling, I didn't start/restart the timer. I just finished out the time left. So I had boiled thirty minutes, stopped boiling for a minute, and then boiled for ten more minutes so total boiling time was forty minutes (with one interruption). Is that okay?

 

[GotGarlic]

I thought you said you added five more minutes to the boiling time?

 

[MrsHoneyB]

Sorry, it’s a little hard to explain…so I wanted to boil my jars for 35 minutes. I boiled them for thirty, then lost the boil for a minute, and then boiled them the remaining 5 minutes (to get to 35 minutes) and for safety, boiled them an additional 5 minutes after that. So forty minutes total.

 

[karadekoolaid]

Still not a problem. Your jars will be fine.

 

[MrsHoneyB]

Thank you so much!!