On Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:34:28 -0400, "Kswck" >
wrote:

>Is there a definitive site you all use for information on canning tomato
>sauce?
>
>Usually, I just grind the tomatoes and make sauce and freeze it in gallon
>bags. I want to try canning the juice/sauce rather than adding all the
>ingredients for sauce, cooking it down and freezing it.
>
>I would think that you must cook down the juice for a bit and then can.
>
>One other question-can one spice the juice, say with onion and garlic,
>before canning or is there a real problem with botulism with garlic?
>
>I usually do around 2 bushels-want to expand to 4 or 5. I do have an
>industrial size electric grinder (50 bushels in 8 hours-or so say the
>literature it came with).
>

The Ball Blue Book of Preserving (a large-format paperback that's
usually available where you buy canning supplies) has a recipe for
tomato sauce like you're talking about - onions, garlic, oregano, etc.

Processing instructoins call for 40 minutes in a boiling water bath
for quart jars. The key to preventing botulism poisoning when using
a boiling water bath is the acidity (pH) of the stuff being canned. A
pH of 4.6 or lower (more acid) prevents the C. botulinum spores from
producing toxin.

The Blue Book recipe includes adding 2 tablespoons of bottled lemon
juice to each quart jar to be certain that there is enough acid.

- Mark