If you follow along with me on Facebook then you know that we have been blessed with 6 five gallon buckets of apples from my in-laws apple trees.
On Friday night I made applesauce and crockpot apple butter (recipe coming tomorrow).
Today I had a 4 hour marathon applesauce making session and canned 28 quarts of applesauce.
I thought you might be interested to know how easy it is to make and can organic, unsweetened applesauce.
First, you need to get some apples. 🙂 I can’t begin to tell you the blessing all of these apples are. I got through a good chunk of these today.
I still have the Granny Smith apples to deal with. I have some ideas thanks to some suggestions from some of you on Facebook.
Anyway, here is how I made all of that applesauce so quickly.
I first washed the apples and then quartered them. No peeling, coring or chopping for me.
Then I put them in a large pot, mostly covered them with water, and turned the burner on high.
I had two pots going at a time and filled each probably 6 times, maybe more, during the course of the morning.
Once the apples were pretty mushy I transferred them to a big bowl to cool slightly. I drained most of the water but did leave some to make it easier to run the apples through my food mill.
I have included a couple of affiliate links in this post. If you purchase something from one of those links I will get a few cents and you will get a great deal.
Last year I purchased a Victorio food strainer
(affiliate link) and it has proven to be one of my favorite tools to process tomatoes, blackberries, and apples.
For years I used to use an attachment for my mixer, and even purchased a motorized tomato juicer (waste of money), but my Victorio food strainer (affiliate link) is my favorite and the price is awesome.
It may be a little much for the 2 year old crowd, though. 🙂 (I just happened to catch her pushing the hair off of her face, but it sure looks like she has been working hard, doesn’t it?)
Since the apples were still fairly hot when I ran them through the strainer I was able to put it right into my hot jars. However, if your applesauce has cooled off you may need to reheat it before putting it into jars.
When I had my jars all filled and fitted with lids and rings I processed them in my water bath canner
(affiliate link) for 20 minutes.
After they were done and I had them on towels on my counter the lids all started pinging to let me know they were sealed. Then I started the whole process over again. 🙂
Here are some things to know about filling canning jars.
- The jars need to be hot before filling them with hot food, like applesauce.
- Wipe the rims of the jars with a wet paper towel or cloth to remove any food before adding the lid.
- The lids need to be simmering in a pan of water before putting them on the jars.
- Do not over-tighten the rings on the jars.
- Once the jars are in the canner, do not start timing until the water is at a rolling boil.
If you would like to see a few more pictures of the actual canning process you might want to check out my post on canning tomato sauce.
Right now I have 35 quarts and 6 pints of applesauce in my basement. Woohoo! 🙂
Have you ever canned applesauce?
