If the jars are syphoning out and leave more headspace when done, like over a half inch, it would make sense to increase the headspace slightly to prevent this in future batches. I doubt if anyone but you would use a ruler and measure the exact amount of head space in 'micro inches'. In many commercially canned glass jar products they have more than 1/2 inch of head space and I am not saying that an inch of headspace is needed, only that a half inch is the barest minimum, while I would not want a long term storage of a canned product to have more than an inch of headspace. I doubt if it would matter or even affect safety in any way if it were slightly over a half inch and up to an inch. But because you seem to go way overboard when working with canning specs sometime, I feel that we also have to get real here and go with what works best for us. You can quote and link to all the USDA sites and other points of interest, but some of those requirements are just silly and guessed at, and have not been thought out in a constructive manner. Scare tactics are taking some newbies to levels of doubt far beyond their comprehension. I bet there are a few who read all the horror sstories here and decide that its just to dangerous to do home canning, and give up. Dare I mention a steam canner again, and all my personal testing involved, and how well it works for my specific canning? My no heat vacuum process has also been a great success for 3 years now with not a single bad jar of pickled pepperoncini yet.

It's not so much "tidy" as I hate to lose all that other great info. ;) And P.S. Dave - to my defense, I didn't realize the vinegar issue until a couple of hours after my first post. I didn't see a way to add or edit a post, hence the second post. It isn't a question of editing a previous post. As medcave said all you had to do was just post the added the question to your other thread. That pops it right back up to the top of the list. There is a 30 min. time frame where the programing won't let you post again on a thread unless you change the subject line in that particular post - something like "oh, I also forgot to ask...". It is there to try to prevent duplicate postings. Dave

Pep, it really doesn't matter what type, any type of sweet pepper. You could even use yellow or red if you like, or sweet banana pepper, according to your preference. Just not that many hot peppers or you might make salsa that could start a fire! Annie

You can peel tomatoes with 2 differant methods. On a fresh tom, make a small and not too deep "X" at the base, then plunge into boiling water for about a minute, or until you see the skin crack a bit. Remove from pot and place into an ice bath to cool and stop all cooking that has started. Stand at the sink and slip the skins off. The other method is to place them into the freezer and let them go rock hard. Simply place them under some warm running water, rub gently and the skins slide off also. Defrost some more and you can sqeeze, (gently or you have tomatoes on the walls), the seeds out and chop for the salsa or sauces. I made Annies salsa yesterday and used a mix of vinegar and lime jiuce....very good!