Are there any sites out there on bottling? I'm not too sure whether I'm getting it right.
I've not found any so far robert, but that HMSO book on Home Preserving of Fruit and Veg is my bottling bible. Any specific questions? I could look them up ::)
Super, how do you do it - just basically - like with your mirabelles as mum has arrived with the most amazing sack of plums and I would love to try to bottle some for a change.
I want to do it to save freezer space, but I'm not at all sure about methods. Any advice would be welcome!
Lucky EJ, already picked too! Robert, I started this malarkey for the same reason - I really only keep raw meat and stock in our little freezer. This is the method I used for fruit - given to me by a lady in Lakeland when I went for the gromits! I wasn't looking forward to the water bath method, the kitchen ceiling paper is already sagging with all that passata boiling :-\ so the oven method seemed preferable. Temperature details taken from that HMSO book on home preserving :)
Kilner jars or similar (Le Parfait etc.)
Fresh rubber gromits.
Rinse out jars with boiling water, including lids, to sterilise.
Wash fruit and pack into jars, making sure all fruit is in good condition. Your choice to stone/halve or not. Thump the bottom of the jar on the table as you fill it to get as many in as poss. and pack tightly
Into 120 C oven with lids on (but not gromits)
They are ready in about 90 minutes (for large jars) (70 minutes for smaller)
Make a fruit syrup - light is 4 oz sugar to 1 pint of water, more sugar makes a heavier syrup
Some juice will have come out and the fruit will have sunk
Take the bottles out of the oven and put them on a wooden or plastic board (to stop them cracking)
Pour boiling water over gromits and funnel, to sterilise.
Pour syrup to fill jar thru funnel. The fruit might rise a bit, but will sink later.
Fish gromit out of boiling water, fix it on jar lid, and clamp or screw shut.
Next day or when completely cold, unclamp or unscrew and lift by the lid to check there's a vacuum.
That's all there is to it really, the key is speed of getting those lids on. I find it helps to give the gromit a stretch before trying to fit it on the Kilner lid.
With the Bormoli jars, it's easier - they are just rubber-edged lids and screw on as soon as the bottles are full of red hot passata. They have a dimple in the middle which goes in to show the vacuum :)
Where do you get the grommets? that's the sort of detail I was missing, though I've got new jars with grommets so it's not a problem right now.
Lakeland - we have a shop in Peterborough. Or any good cookware shop should have them :)
And it really is as simple as that?!?!? Wow. And how long would the bottled fruit last SS??
Can you use fruit juice instead of sugar, or do you have to add more sugar to it? Do you have to boil the syrup?
Don't know about fruit juice robert, in theory if you bottled everything red hot, it would keep - I believe that the sugar helps preserve it as well as making fruit sweeter (it will be 'cooked' by this process). I haven't tried it though. Yes, the sugar syrup goes in BOILING but you don't have to play hard ball etc. with it ::)
This is my first year bottling EJ, again in theory so long as the vacuum holds the fruit should be preserved. The Italian lady on the next plot says she still has passata from two years ago! Don't know if there's be any loss of flavour?
This method must be ideal for people who have Agas, envy envy ;)
Sugar is a preservative above a certain concentration; I don't know what the critical level is. Above it, it kills bacteria etc. by reverse osmosis, which is a fancy way of saying that it sucks the water out of them. That's one reason why honey is such a good wound treatment. The only thing is, Namissa's going to turn her nose up at anything preserved in sugar!
Try a honey syrup?
'Syrup' is rather too strong a word - and you don't need much, just enough to top up the jar. Sounds like experiments r us in the Brenchley household! ::)
The required final sugar solution level is 65% according to google ...
http://www.sugar.org/consumers/sweet_by_nature.asp?id=279 (http://www.sugar.org/consumers/sweet_by_nature.asp?id=279)
I have a sugar issue with my diabetic daughter too ...
Quote from: Robert_Brenchley on August 26, 2006, 23:01:52
Above it, it kills bacteria etc. by reverse osmosis, which is a fancy way of saying that it sucks the water out of them. That's one reason why honey is such a good wound treatment.
A quick in-and-out of this topic. Well written Robert. Pure set honey's a staple(!) medicine for me for burns and have an unscarred foot to prove it 8)
I imagine that the sugar solution % for preserving is for jams and jellies and so on, where there's no vacuum? By the time the dob of syrup has gone into the jars to fill them up, the solution is well diluted so it can't be responsible for the preserving - it's the sterile environment in the bottles that must do most of the work. And passata in bottles has no added sugar (apart from what's in the toms). Fascinating stuff eh :) I use honey on my face from time to time too, it seems to plump out the wrinkles nicely, so maybe that's what it does in the bottles ;D
Honey's fine when I've got a decent amount! This year has been pathetic. Namissa once got a bad scald when we were on holiday; I treated it with honey and it healed up in double-quick time, without a scar. They're now starting to use it to treat MRSA. I wouldn't have thought sugar concentration in a sterile environment (which is what you ought to have in a bottle) would be important.
Two lovely bottles of plums are now sitting on my side cooling gently. Tomorrow I will do the seal test, then if all is well, open them at Christmas!! The smell was fab! Just need to get a few more kilners now. ;D Thanks Sarah - you are a star!! :-*
I bought all my kilner style jars from this place http://www.waresofknutsford.co.uk/ (http://www.waresofknutsford.co.uk/) they also do replacement parts for the kilner jars. We did bottled pears last year, they are VERY sweet, too sweet for my liking but it was a good way of preserving them. Delia's spiced pickled pears are good too, there's a recipe on the delia online website. :)
I had a look on eBay last night; there were loads of Kilner jars and grommets.