Posted: 9/19/2011 6:38:15 PM EDT
| Anyone have a recipe for canning Pumpkin Butter? Most places say it isn't safe to can it, but I figured I would ask just in case. |
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Well, the problem with that is that pumpkin is a low-acid food item, and on top of that it's VERY thick. Combine those two factors, and that makes it very difficult to create an environment where dangerous microorganisms can't grow (C.Botulinum is the primary worry).
Ya see, the thicker/denser the food item you're canning the harder it is to heat it evenly throughout. What can happen is you'll scorch the outside and leave a ball of cooler material in the middle that can still harbor spores (and in an oxygen free environment, that particular microbe runs free). Alternatively, the thickness of the pumpkin slurry can vary from recipe to recipe (and pumpkin to pumpkin) and result in vastly different cook times necessary to achieve a safe product, and that's hard to test for and control for in the home. And if you can't get everything in the jar up to the right temperature for the right period of time, well eventually if enough people do it people will die. Currently, there is no recipe for canning pumpkin butter that has tested safe. Better just to make some up and freeze it. ETA: That's home-canning, industrial processes use different methods as well as chemicals to retard the growth of microorganisms. |