Loki wrote:

> On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 19:24:17 -0500, George Shirley
> > wrote:
>
>
>>Mostly they will hold their shape if handled with care. The stems are
>>supposed to be cut off before you make the preserves. Maybe I forgot to
>>mention that? The mark of a good fig preserve canner down here, or so
>>the Altar Society Ladies tell me, is the figs remain whole and the figs
>>and syrup are a deep amber color. I can tell you this, I ain't made it
>>yet but I still like my fig preserves. Miz Pettijohn always gives me a
>>pint of hers that are perfect and they don't taste any better than mine
>>but I ain't telling her that.
>>
>>I wouldn't worry about the shape of the finished product.
>
>
> Well, they came out dark amber as did the syrup. They mostly held
> their shape too. I'll worry about the green bits later. LOL.
>
> I did have rather more air in the jars than I'd expected to. I filled
> to within 1/4" of the rim as the instructions said, got out the air
> bubbles I though but now I seem to have more air than that would
> account for. Will this be a problem?

You may have lost some liquid during the BWB time, normally this won't
hurt anything as long as the lid seals like it should. What I do is
this: after the jars have cooled for 24 hours I remove the rings then
try to lift the jar by the lid with my fingertips, just a little so the
jar won't break if it drops away. In the last two years I've only found
one jar that wasn't sealed out of the scadzillion I've put up. Turns out
there was a bit of sealing rubber missing that I had not noticed. Put on
a new lid, reprocessed and it worked fine.
>
>
>>George, who had a wonderful time with his descendants and ate waaay too
>>much Tex-Mex grub while he was there, not to mention the pork ribs.
>
>
> Sounds like fun to me!

My four year old greatgranddaughter appears to be about 35 yo in her
thought processes. B-) The one year old is a lot more fun, wanders
around eating the dogs food, getting drinks from the half barrel with
fish and plants, and various other things that astonish and astound her
mother and grandmother but doesn't faze us greatgrands, we've been
through that phase several times. Zoe and Avery are lovely little girls
but I'm glad my grandson and his wife are raising them.

George