Posted: 7/3/2009 8:12:45 PM EDT
My wife and I got married in early June, and as wedding favors she wanted to make pints of BBQ sauce for everyone using her grandfather's recipe that he perfected for decades. Neither of us had any experience canning so this would be something fun to try. Just to head off questions: NO you can't have the recipe (I've been threatened with death if I give it out) and YES, it is amazingly good. It is especially quite good at clearing out your sinuses if you take a whiff while it is boiling on the stove...
We planned to have ~120 people at the wedding so we figured that 84 pints (bought as 7-dozen) would be enough, although after all those were done they went out the next day and made another batch to bring it up to ~100 pints. We also didn't own any canning supplies so we went out and bought an 11.5qt water bath canner from the local hardware store in my hometown, plus a Presto canning kit. Interestingly enough I think both of these were cheaper at the hardware store than Amazon, plus the owner of the store was very helpful and knowledgeable. I probably would have gotten a canning kit a bit cheaper elsewhere, but we liked the personalized service (and this is the only one they had). We chose this particular water bath canner because the rack inside was specifically made for pint jars. Later on I found out that the pint jars we were using didn't seem to fit very well –– very cramped quarters inside! I'm not sure if this is true with all brands since they're probably all essentially the same (or close to it). We used "Golden Harvest" jars since they have a flat side that we wanted to use for labels. Plus they were ~$1+ cheaper per dozen at Wal-Mart than the equivalent Ball jars. Starting around 11am it took me until ~9pm to can all 84 pints –– this included cleaning all jars in the dishwasher, cooking three batches of BBQ sauce, filling jars, the canning process, cleaning everything afterwards....everything.  I would have started earlier but I was working at my future sister-in-law's house and she started her dishwasher earlier and we didn't realize her dishwasher is incredibly slow. 
On the other hand I believe her dishwasher held something like 60 jars at once, which made it easy to get them clean. I learned quite a bit from this experience:
If anybody cares, we boiled the jars for 10 minutes per batch. After a bit of research online it appeared that people were canning BBQ sauce for 10-15 minutes so we decided that with the amount of vinegar-based ingredients in the recipe making it extra acidic that 10 minutes per batch would be fine. Looking back through my photos of the day I realize I didn't have any of all the jars in the corner where they cooled overnight, although I think a few people at the wedding got some shots of the table with all the jars... Anyway here's a few shots from the day: All the jars, right after buying them at Wal-Mart: 
Dishwasher full of jars: 
Cooking area –– you can see a few full jars off to the right. This was early in the process before space started to get cramped 
Photo of the jars on the table at the wedding, taken by a friend. The photo above is a shot of my wife and I diving on a Japanese WW2 wreck in Micronesia last summer...I proposed on that same trip, a day or two earlier than the photo. 
|
I got it done, but I felt as if I was constantly behind some imaginary deadline.
From 11am until about 8pm there was at least one burner going continuously, sometimes with two or three going at once.|
Quoted:
Great post man. Thanks for sharing. I plan on seriously getting into canning/jarring here in the next few months. If you have them, I'd appreciate some pictures of the actual canning process. Thanks again. I would love to post photos of the actual process, but like I said this was a one-person show so I didn't get a chance to take photos of the process. I usually love taking photos of things like that, so yeah...I'm a bit disappointed too. Perhaps next time! It kinda went like this: 1: After I got the jars clean and the BBQ sauce made and boiling for a few minutes I took a few jars and filled them with the sauce. After wiping the rim of each jar I put the lid on, followed by the ring, and then put all the jars into the canning rack. 2: While this was going on I also had some water in the canning rack and started heating it up. After putting the rack of jars in the canner I added (or subtracted) water until it was the right amount and let it start to boil. 3: Once it was boiling I started the timer for 10 minutes –– meanwhile I repeated the process of filling more jars. 4: When the batch in the canner was through I took them out and put them off to the side. Then I refilled the canner, continuing the process. Once that entire container of BBQ sauce is empty I started up another one. This takes a bit to get mixed correctly and get boiling, and we have to get it smelling just right. After it boils for a few minutes I started over.
|
| I had a discussion about canning/jarring with my brother-in-law yesterday who cans regularly. He said food properly canned would/could last years. Is this true? For instance, tomatoes. If you can a jar of tomatoes, how long will they last? BBQ sauce I'm assuming has either sugar or molasses in it so does that shorten the storage length of it? |
|
Quoted:
I had a discussion about canning/jarring with my brother-in-law yesterday who cans regularly. He said food properly canned would/could last years. Is this true? For instance, tomatoes. If you can a jar of tomatoes, how long will they last? BBQ sauce I'm assuming has either sugar or molasses in it so does that shorten the storage length of it? Two years is tops for tomato products. A year for best quality. BBQ sauce stores about as well as red sauce. Haven't noticed much difference in longevity between our red sauces and our BBQ sauce. |
|
very nice presents!!!! many times our family friends recieve canned goods as gifts on holidays. Pickles, peach salsa, tomato salsa, hot relish and sweet relish are favorites to give also.
I commend you on your "secret" recipe I have two that I only trade for other recipes that I really want. One is for spaghetti sauce the other is for German sweet relish. |