So the meat doesn't have to be covered with the liquid unless the recipe says so? I thought maybe my meat was a little too dry. Thank you for the help. It wasn't a lot of extra liquid...a little per jar, but you're right, it did dilute the flavor a bit. I'm waiting to see how it turns out after the processing finishes. I'm trying to keep more in the pantry to free up the freezer. I'm always careful to follow the directions, but I didn't know what the density of the finished product was supposed to be like. thanks... Jill

An update - popped open a jar of our tweaked chili sauce tonight (we're calling it our "North of the Border" chili sauce - did another batch tweaking the spices to make a "South of the Border" flavor). DH's comment - "Don't you dare change a thing - it's gooood". I think it just needed some time to meld all the flavors back together. Weird how that happens - in the future I certainly won't start making notes on what to change without tasting it after being on the shelf for a couple of months.

Sorry, didn't mean you needed to list them all. :) Just meant give us a couple of specific recipe examples where your results have been way off so we could look up the recipe and maybe help ID what may be the cause. Surprisingly, based on posts in the past, most seem to find they get more jars than less and so prepare more jars rather then less. But some examples of general causes of a big difference between the recipe's predictions and results of much less: 1) as with coralb's post above - using the wrong size of jars 2) accidentally leaving out an ingredient and not realizing it - happens more often than you might think especially for new folks and some recent posts here on just that issue 3) mistakes in measuring as Linda Lou mentioned 4) chopping/grinding/dicing - all those terms mean very different things to some folks and particle size can make a BIG difference in the end result. This is especially common with chutneys and relishes. Chutneys are typically a very coarse chop while relishes are a very find chop or a grind. So if you grind chutney ingresients you'll get less jars. 5) over-packing the jars with solids and not enough liquid (the most common cause by far and the only one that poses a potential safety issue). People tend to over-cram either to make it look like store-bought to to avoid having left overs. Especially common when doing tomatoes whole or in halves. 6) over-cooking before jarring results is softer, more compact food particles - BIG effect on tomatoes. 7) the food quality/juiciness controls the amount of liquid A point about Sure Jell vs. the other pectins. Sure Jell is a much harder set than the other brands, especially the Ball Brand pectins. So with Sure Jell's rock-hard set you will often get less 1/2 pint jars. One reason why many of us don't like to use Sure Jell and prefer Ball or Pomona. Personally I'll use Certo if I have to before I'll use Sure Jell. But the important issue is safety of the foods and when done properly the foods should be safe even if it is a jar off. Hope this helps some and if you haven't, consider purchasing the Ball Complete Book of Home Food Preserving. Dave PS: is your BBB the new edition? There have been many changes.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the recipe would look something like this with your "tweaks" (I have doubled the tomatoes, or rather left them the same while halving the other ingredients and leaving out the hot peppers, so this still makes something like 5 pints rather than 10 which would not fit in *my* BWB): Tweaked recipe (makes app. 5 pints?) Ball Zesty Salsa Recipe (from freshpreserving.com) 10 cups chopped cored peeled tomatoes (about 25 medium) 2.5 cups chopped seeded green bell peppers (about 2 large) 2.5 cups chopped onions (about 3 to 4 medium or 1 large) 5 oz cider vinegar (or lemon/lime juice)* 1.5 cloves garlic, finely chopped (app. 1.5 tsp) 1 Tbsp finely chopped cilantro 1/2 Tbsp salt 1/2 tsp hot pepper sauce, optional *Note this is halving the acid, as previously noted this may be borderline, it would be safer to increase the acid to compensate for the "increased" volume of tomatoes. NCHFP acidification for tomatoes is 1 Tbsp per pint (2C), so that would be 2.5Tbsp (1.25 oz) of lemon (or lime) juice for the 5 "additional" cups, assuming the original recipe had *just* enough acid (vinegar) with no wiggle room. If using vinegar it would be 5 Tbsp (2.5oz) additional, for a total of 7.5oz (so say 1C). There is still the density issue as Dave said - though I think that "substituting" 5 cups of tomatoes in the (halved) recipe for 1 1/4C peppers would help, it really depends on what kind of tomatoes you're using. Now, compare above "recipe" with Annie's tested/approved recipe: Annie's Salsa Recipe 8 cups tomatoes, peeled, chopped and drained 2-1/2 cups onion, chopped 1-1/2 cups green pepper, chopped 3 - 5 jalapenos, chopped (app 1/4C) 6 cloves garlic (may be reduced) 2 teaspoons cumin (may be reduced) 2 teaspoons ground black pepper (may be reduced) 1/8 cup canning salt (or to taste) 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped (may be reduced) 1/3 cup sugar (optional) 1 cup 5% apple cider vinegar 2 cups (16 oz.) tomato sauce 2 cups (16 oz.) tomato paste Mix all ingredients, bring to a boil and boil for 10 minutes. Pour into hot pint jars, seal and process in a boiling water canning bath for 15 minutes. Makes about 6 pints Annie's does have about 3/4C less low-acid ingredients and 2C less tomato, plus adds tomato sauce to thin it out (though my notes say that it is optional - if you're using beefsteaks and not paste tomatoes it may be thin enough, you may want to add more paste and less/no sauce, just make sure it's soupy). See the thread linked below for complete notes (malna, I had made the same notes myself, took a lot of digging through old threads!). That thread also has link to NCHFP salsa acidification guidelines. All in all, I think you're better off just trying Annie's.