Yes, you can use water and lemon juice. Equal parts lemon and water work well.

Yes you can add a cinnamon stick. You wouldn't even have to remove it except that it would darken the syrup in the jar.

Good luck with the apples!

Carol

I don't use as much lemon as Carol is suggesting, but I do like to use a really good squirt, probably 1/4=1/2 cup in 4 cups of water.

I don't use a syrup, just hot water. That way I can use the apples in any recipe later.

Cover the jars with 1-2" minimum of water, sometimes I can't get 2", but I watch and make sure that the jars are covered all the time. I have added super hot water if needed.

If you don't add the lemon, then your apples will just darken, not good looking but still safe. This year I added lemon juice AND fruit fresh and my apples are still WHITE as they were when first cut, after being canned for a month or more.

Marla

I followed the directions in the book, but I could tell when I put them in the jars, the apples (granny smith) had turned to mush. I guess I will label these jars "apple goo."

Need thicker slices perhaps. Thin ones will mush.

Dave

I like to chunk the apples instead of slicing them. Different apples will work up differently. You made applesauce. You need a 'eating apple'.

What varieties are good for canning slices? My local store has several varieties on sale for .77 a pound this week. I guess I chose wrong! :)

Usually a crisper apple, I just use whatever we have growing. My step grandfather grafted his own trees, so we don't know what varieties they are.

If they have Honey Crisp for the 77 cents/lb, they don't brown as quickly and are supposed to be a good apple. I haven't tasted them.

To me, store apples aren't what I would can, but I can be picky about that.

I just wanted to chime in about Honeycrisp apples. I only ate them once and the ones I had were sweet and crunchy but they had no real apple flavor at all. Not worth the hype or the money, in my opinion. And this quote (link below) about their flavor proves my experience wasn't just due to the particular apples I had:

"The flavour is sweet with very little trace of acidity and little depth or complexity. There can also be a trace of pear-drop flavour. In a good example this is a juicy and instantly refreshing apple, in a less good example it will be simply sweet and bland (but still very nice). As its name suggests this is genuinely a crisp/crunchy apple. However since the flesh is quite light, the crunch is surprisingly soft, nothing like the hard crisp crunch of a good Golden Delicious."

My favorite apple is Idared. It's got good flavor and it's a hard, crunchy apple so I think it would can well.

Rodney

Here is a link that might be useful: Honeycrisp Apples

This post was edited by theforgottenone1013 on Sun, Oct 20, 13 at 2:25

What varieties are good for canning slices?

Nettie what size "slices"? I can Granny Smith in slices all the time with no problem but the term "slices" means different things to different people and if using one of those spiral apple slicers they are too thin. I think 1/4" slices are just too thin so go for at least 1/2" thick or more.

We use one of these and then with a really big apple, cut them in 1/2 again.

Dave

PS: the other issue can be cooking them too long or at too hot a temp before filling the jars. 5 min max at no more than a light simmer.

I raw pack mine, but I don't think it's approved any longer. I do process longer than the 20 minutes for hot pack, I use 30-35. Again, this is NOT now an approved method, but have used in past, my experience. I also add boiling water to the apples.

I have a small apple orchard and five or six different varieties and canned some of all of them over the years, and suffered through the school of hard knocks learning what and how. ;-)

The things one needs to consider on canning apples are first of all the variety. Some apples are just naturally softer and mealier and do not make good candidates for baking or canning, other than perhaps in sauce. There are charts everywhere guiding you to those not suitable. Then there is something I have not seen here yet and that is degree of ripeness. Fully ripe apples also will make a softer product. There is ripe and then there is ripe! We chill our apples out just as soon as they come to full colour. They'll hold perfectly fine out of refrigeration for a good deal longer, but they become softer. It's easy for me, since we raise our own, but you are at the mercy of the vendor if you don't. I will purposely use apples just on the hard side of ripe for canning. If you look at the commerically canned apple pie filling it really appears they take this to the max.

Then of course is the size of the slice. I do not 'slice' those I intend to can or preserve. I cut them like I would cut a pie, in narrow wedges, almost twice as thick as I would cut a slice for a pie made fresh. Then as Dave says be right on top of your heat control both in preparing to jar them and also in the processing time.

calliope, I agree on the ripeness and the thicker 'slices', I call chunks. So many vendors, whether the grocery store or farmers market, don't know HOW to care for the produce. Many just assume that the orchard picked it right and it should be good until it rots.

Last year i canned Johnagolds and they stayed in beautiful firm slices and were great for pies. I used the same variety this year and they got all mushy. I believe that they were too ripe .So they are other factors involved here, beside the variety.., I'll just empty a jar into the blender, whenever we want some applesauce..,

I just noticed yesterday, while in the grocery store, that they had apples for 33 cents per pound. I have plenty and most of the apple trees here are loaded.

Just went to a nearby orchard this afternoon. Asked for Granny Smith, but the owner said she didn't have them and recommended the Idared for pies. So I bought a peck and will do some tomorrow. I also have a bag of crab apples to do up into jelly, then when I finish all of this I'll go back and get more of the Idared. I like to cut my apples into the thicker slices, or chunks.

Madonna

Granny Smith ripens much later than the Idareds, that might be why she didn't have them. OR maybe she doesn't have any of those trees. Another good 'old' variety for pies is Northern Spy, but there isn't a lot of those trees left. My orchard still carries them.

I've got to see if orchard 10 miles away has them - they have in past. I might actually have some, DH says he sees apples out in the orchard (not just 1 tree on the hill by tomatoes) now that leaves are fallen. 1 on stonewall is green type, but there are some red out there - I remember Spy and Baldwin from when I was a kid, don't know what's survived but looks more like a Spy to me. Not sweet, but not as tart as I remember.

Another orchard in town has some Spy crosses - I have to try to remember what names are. Last year was a bad apple year so they didn't have many.

Pie apples are not as sweet as the 'eating' apples, and usually crisper. I know the orchard that I get my main apples from (over 60 years old with same owner) swears by the Northern Spy for pies. Not so much for apple butter tho. For apple butter, I like Red and Yellow Delicious, equal mix, with those 2 varieties, I don't need to add any sugar, sweet enough.

Yellow Delicious (the old fashioned kind) makes wonderful butter. Our neighbor got some from their former neighbor a few years ago, and gave us a bunch.

The store-bought Red Delicious aren't worth eating IMHO.

Store bought aren't worth eating, IMHO. My xDIL swore that she didn't like apples, she only had store bought. After eating a properly ripened apple, she changed her mind.

I don't use store-bought produce for any canning.

Thanks, myfamilysfarm. I want to get to the orchard that was just down the road from us before we moved to this place - 27 years ago. They had bought the oldest orchard in that county and she taught me a lot. They are still in business and maybe they would have the Northern Spy. Will have to get there before Halloween as they close for the year right after that.

Whose orchard, since we are in the same state?