Cranberry Sauce, 2016

I just did the annual canner run of cranberry sauce.  I followed the same general procedures described last year, but this year started with more berries. I missed out on the three-pound bags at one warehouse club--they were only there one weekend and my refrigerator was full of other things--but another club had two-pound bags.  I got five.

As I have done previously, I started by culling bad berries. There are always some that have a few soft spots, and some are profoundly bad.  It takes a bit of time and I'm sure I miss some even with the sorting; nonetheless, it improves the finished product.  FWIW, making cranberry sauce on your own rather than buying what's available already canned makes sense for this reason alone: some of the bad berries may be removed at canneries by quality control procedures, but some probably make it into the finished product.

I spent close to an hour picking through the berries, and at the end I removed 21 ounces' worth.  Last year I noted that I had an 18% fail rate; this year was better--only 13%.

That left me with a lot of berries, and I knew I'd have more than one canner load (eight quarts) of sauce.  I upped the water and Whey Low by 12%, using 12 cups of each. 

Given the increased quantity, I used my big stock pot, which has a capacity of 20 quarts. It fit everything with ease.   After picking through the berries, the only other thing I do to them before pouring into the pot is rinse them in a colander.

I let the syrup boil before dumping them in; some rupture immediately but some take a while.  Probably 15 minutes elapsed between pouring the berries into the pot and having a finished product ready to ladle into jars.  I got about ten quarts.  The last quart jar was only about 80% full, so I didn't process it--I just stuck it into the refrigerator.  It's mostly syrup, anyway.  As the picture below shows, I still have trouble balancing berries and syrup in the jars. I don't worry about it--they all end up being edible.

Out of curiosity, I checked the pH.  It looks to me like it's about 3.0, maybe 3.0-3.5.  Everything's looking good.

Apple Pie Filling

This is a straightforward application of the recipe at the NCHFP:  Apple Pie Filling.  I mix up the seven quarts recipe.  Apple cider or juice are both fine, and I used Whey Low instead of regular sugar (although the company says it can be used as a sugar substitute, there's no research on it as far as I know--however, I made a very heavy Whey Low syrup sample and tested its pH; it was comparable to what I get with straight tap water as discussed recently...so it seems to be fairly neutral as is sugar).

The fist step in making apple pie filling is to peel and chop the apples.  I could do it the same way I did the pears, which was pretty slow, but I used my apple corer/peeler/slicer.  Models are sold by various vendors; essentially it's something that is cranked and it quickly slices, peels, and cores an apple.  I then cut the rings into quarters for pie filling.  After that, I dunked them into a bowl with some ascorbic acid to reduce browning.

As can be seen (though not well) in the picture, there is still some peel attached to the top and bottom of the apple.  I snapped those bits off and ate them while I worked.  I suppose I could've manually removed them or just left them on, but I went for a somewhat-cleaner look (and ate the equivalent of one apple during the processing because of it).

The filling mix itself includes clear jell, which is corn starch with some level of special processing so that it will be well-behaved in recipes.  The clear jell thickens the mixture.  Initially, when mixing the sugar, clear jell, cinnamon, water and apple cider, it's very thin (I skipped the nutmeg).

As it starts to heat, the clear jell begins to clump together as shown below.  Eventually, it sets up and assumes a very thick consistency.  I stirred it almost constantly during this time.  When it starts to boil, it's like magma: large bubbles pop, flinging bits fairly high.  I got some on my arm and one finger, which caused minor burns.  A minute of that was enough.  I dumped in the 3/4 cup of lemon juice and quickly followed with the apple slices.

 The NCHFP recipe calls for blanching the apple slices, but that didn't seem necessary to me: after all, it will be subject to boiling during the canning process.  I have made this one time before, as briefly noted previously, and did not blanch that time, either: the finished product the first time around was good.

One caveat: the NCHFP calls for one inch of headspace, which is a lot, but it's necessary.  I tried to leave that but a couple of jars overflowed during the canning process nonetheless.

Using this stuff is pretty easy: dump a jar into a pie shell, put a top crust on, and bake.  It's something nice to do when you have a surplus of apples.

Random Observations on pH

This post has very little substantive content, but it's something I have observed a couple of times before and thought was interesting.  Most fruit is acidic enough to be processed in a boiling-water bath (BWB) canner (i.e., pH of 4.6 or lower).  Foods that are low in acid or basic can be BWB processed if enough acid--generally vinegar--is added to drop the pH below the threshold at which the bacteria that causes botulism can grow.  This is how pickled vegetables are made safe for BWB canning (though just tossing some acid into a jar isn't satisfactory; it has to be enough to lower the pH of both the solids and liquids to no greater than 4.6).

I have pH test strips and sometimes check the level of things I'm making--though this can be difficult if the food in question is strongly-colored (e.g., sauerkraut made with red cabbage).  Recently I canned pears.  As is often the case, I had some left over that didn't fit into a jar for processing, so I tossed them into a container and put them in the refrigerator along with most of the leftover syrup.  A week later, I checked the pH of the syrup out of curiosity.

As can be seen, the pH was 5.5-6.0.  This is not acidic enough, but the pear-to-syrup ratio in the container was much lower than in the processed jars.  For comparison, the pH of the water from my kitchen faucet is fairly neutral:

The few peach slices in the container acidified the syrup, but only to a point: this has implications for lightly-packed canning jars.  The fruit slices themselves will be acid, but if there aren't enough, perhaps the syrup will not be.

Powdered Dairy Products

This one's a little unusual (at least to me): powdered butter.  When making jerky, one is admonished to trim as much fat off the meat as possible, because fat does not dehydrate.  However, powdered butter does have fat in it...but it is dehydrated and long-term storable, nonetheless.  It isn't all fat, and it is overall lower in calories than an equivalent amount of butter: the nutrition info says it has 45 calories per tablespoon, with 35 coming from fat and the remainder from carbs (1g) and protein (1g).  It also has 45 mg. of sodium, and tastes fairly salty.

I do not typically buy salted butter (and overall use very little salt in anything I make, such as bread), so it is probably just my perception.  It appears that 45 mg. is in line with a tablespoon of whipped salted butter, so someone who's accustomed to salt would probably think it is fine.

Otherwise, the flavor is okay.  It mixes up with a little water and produces something that is overall pretty soft but usable for spreading on anything; I haven't tried it in baking (though I may).

So the obvious question is, "Why?"  I mostly got it out of curiosity; it was on sale.  The can pictured above is a few years old at this point, and has probably been open about a year.  It's still good.  Probably something smaller than a #10 can would be ideal for someone who doesn't plan to use a lot, but it might be worthwhile to have on the shelf if ever needed.  Canned butter is available, too; I have no idea how long it would last with good quality.

Powdered whole milk is available, too, and rehydrates very well.  I usually mix a little of it with powdered non-fat milk to end up with something more appealing than fat-free alone (in my experience, about the best a fat-free powdered milk product can aspire to is the equivalence to liquid skim milk, which is okay insofar as it goes, but many powdered milk varieties fall way short--sometime I may do a review).

Powdered whole milk does not have a shelf life as long as powdered fat-free, which (based on research done by Oscar Pike and colleagues at BYU) is about 20 years (if stored in an oxygen free environment).  I currently have an open can of powdered whole milk that has a best-by date of April, 2015 (18 months ago) and it's fine. I am trying to use it quickly, however--so quickly that I'm mixing it straight, with no fat-free powder added.  I'm going to spoil myself.

Powdered sour cream is available, too, but I haven't tried it yet.  Powdered buttermilk is okay but when mixed up is a little more bland than fresh.  All of these may or may not have utility for you depending on how fast you consume them and how accessible fresh products are.