Applesauce has mold--what went wrong?

9 years ago

This was my first year canning. I canned pickles, blackberry jam, peaches, and applesauce. For the apple sauce, I used red delicious apples from a local farm. Everything seemed fine except the apple sauce, as I noticed about 1/3 of the jars appear to have discoloration or mold at the top.

I boiled the apples and then ran them through the food mill. From here I boiled the apple sauce adding the sugar and cinnamon. Finally I filled the pint jars and boiled in the water bath canner for 15-20minutes.

What baffles me is all the jars are sealed. I press down on the lids, no pop. And when I opened the jar in the picture, I could tell it was sealed.

The recipe i used did not list lemon juice as required, so I didn't use any. I also used light sugar. I am storing them in the closet in the den where it's dry and not near a heater.

Any thought on what went wrong?

Like I said above, all the pickles, jam, and peaches look fine and have no sign of mold or discoloration.

This post was edited by nwjason82 on Sat, Oct 11, 14 at 23:25

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Comments (8)

pixie_lou
9 years ago
That definitely looks like mold, and not just darkening.

What is light sugar?

We're your jars sanitized before filling? Was your applesauce boiling when you filled the jars? Did you follow proper BWB procedure - jars into pot, bring water to boil, time 15 minutes, turn off heat and take off lid, wait 5 minutes before removing jars? Did the jars seal immediately?
digdirt2
9 years ago
Yeah there had to have been some method mistake. Too much headspace? Windfall apples used? They require added acid to be safe.

Like pixie said, was it boiling hot when going into the jars? Jars cooled before going into the BWB? Did they all get processed in the same batch? If not some may have cooled on the counter while waiting and shouldn't have been filled. Not a hard enough boil or mistake in timing?

The fact that jars seal isn't always an indication that all is well as the seal may just be a weak one and air is still in the jars.

Sorry you have to pitch so much.

Dave.
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nwjason82
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks for the responses. I'd call the apples end of season. They seemed a bit better than windfall and were in decent shape, but weren't fresh off the tree.

By light sugar, I meant I just used a little graduated white sugar for taste.

Head space is consistent in all the jars, half inch.

Jars were sanitized. I made these in batches so I didn't make up more than what the canner could hold. Leftovers went to the fridge for each batch.

As far processing, the water was boiling in the BWB for 15 minutes, but I may not have left them in for 5 minutes after. The jars did seal/pop pretty quickly.

Maybe I didn't heat a couple of the batches up enough before going in the canner.

I'll learn and do better next year.
calliope
9 years ago
'Maybe I didn't heat a couple of the batches up enough before going in the canner.' I suspect that is where the glitch occured. After if you made the sauce, what didn't fit in the jars in the first batch went in the fridge. Mold and yeast spores actually float in the air, so it was inoculated. It needs to be essentially boiled AGAIN when you take it out and jar additional batches. Simmered enough to kill organisms, all over again and then jarred when it is hot as possible. I would treat any in the fridge like I would an unprocessed batch, because it essentially is. Just out of curiosity, how long did any of it sit in the fridge before you got around to jarring it? If you have more than a canner full, and some left over, did you know you don't need an actual canner to process them? I have pressed any deep pot into service for BWB if I have too much for the canners I have. All it has to do is be deeper enough to leave at least an inch of water over the jars, and provide some sort of protection to the bottom, even a dish rag, so the jars don't knock about and break. Sorry about your experience. It's frustrating.
kriswrite
9 years ago
For the record, the jars don't need to be sanitized before you fill them...unless processing time is under 10 minute, which it wouldn't be for applesauce.
seysonn
9 years ago
I boiled the apples and then ran them through the food mill. From here I boiled the apple sauce adding the sugar and cinnamon. Finally I filled the pint jars and boiled in the water bath canner for 15-20minutes.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The one in the picture clrearly shows that it was not sealed. The air entered from one point and the mold grew.

It is possible that either your seals were old /defective or you did not clean to contact point on the lip.

When you cook/boil the sauce the bacteria must have been killed. Then you hot pack and process in BWB, it should assure that no bacteria causing mold survived. So the only possible source of bacteria is from the air outside.
pixie_lou
9 years ago
Kriswrite wrote:
For the record, the jars don't need to be sanitized before you fill them...unless processing time is under 10 minute, which it wouldn't be for applesauce.

Actually processing under 10 minutes requires jars to be sterilized, not sanitized. There is a difference.

What I was getting at with the op - were the jars clean before filling? We're they washed in hot sudsy water? Or did they get run through the dishwasher? Since I store my empty jars in the basement, I always run them thru the sanitize cycle on my dishwasher before using.
HU-372150806
last year
I have just had the exact same experience and i have made applesauce for over 25 years. this is the first time this has happened. mold inside the jars but jar is sealed. i used fall apples and ive done this before without issues but perhaps not enough acid??? how do i measure?

Applesauce has mold--what went wrong?

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pixie_lou

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Applesauce has mold--what went wrong?

Comments (8)

pixie_lou

digdirt2

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nwjason82Original Author

calliope

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