Glass lid type jars are not used today as you cannot easily determine whether they have a vacuum inside or not as there is no visual indicator. Pulling on the rubber ring tab may release a vacuum, but once its released, it can then spoil. Metal lids today and embossed dimples that are designed to go concave when the jar is sealed under vacuum. Once the lid is removed the dimple pops out as a small round bump. Mold inside after canning and storage tells me that there is an insufficient process going on and it can render the product toxic! Even for that, the rubber rings do fail and should be replaced as they are not made the same way as the metal lids seals. When I dad used old glass jars with wire bails and glass dome lids, he would put the rubber rings in boiling water too and then stretch them over the lip of the jars, and once in awhile one would tear apart. One type is rubber ring the other is a silicone compound on the metal lids. The metal lids are not designed to be reused either, as their seal area has a permenent pressure groove in the compound after being used on a jar, and will not return to its original state. Today a local PBS channel had a quick recipe for apple sauce. It called for cutting unpeeled apples from their cores and putting them in a big pot with a cup of water and cook a half hour or more to soften. Then they ran them through a Foley, but you could see it takes a long time to get the pulp out and having to deal with skins that block the sieve holes. They used only one kind of apple and didn't mix types, and only added about a half cup of sugar. The chef also added a little cinamon after straining. It was not a canning recipe, but anyone with common sense could make it into a BWB apple sauce.

Here is a recipe I have used before.. Turned out good.. Summertime Blueberry Wine Makes 5 gallons (19 L) 15 lbs. (6.8 kg) blueberries 9 lbs. (4 kg) sugar 2��"3 cups grape concentrate (optional ��" this will add to the wineâÂÂs fruitiness) 2.5 tsp. acid blend 2.5 tsp. pectic enzyme 3 tsp. yeast nutrient 0.18 oz. (5 g) potassium metabisulfite (approximately 150 ppm SO2) 2 tsp. potassium sorbate 1 tsp. tannin Yeast (Lalvin EC1118 or Lalvin 71B-1122) Crush the blueberries. Add the water-sugar mixture and enough water to make 5 gallons (19 L). Add potassium metabisulfite. Cover and let sit for two days. 3. Add sugar, if necessary, to reach specific gravity of 1.090. 4. Add the tannin, acid blend, pectic enzyme and yeast nutrient. Stir everything to blend. Maintain a constant fermentation temperature range between 70��"75 ðF (21��"24 ðC). Add yeast to the must. 7. Stir the floating cap of fruit pulp into the fermenting must twice a day during fermentation. 8. Fermentation will continue for approximately 14 to 21 days. Take notice if the bubbles in the airlock have gotten very slow ��" that is a good sign that the fermentation is coming to an end. Use your hydrometer to monitor and make sure that the fermentation has stopped. 9. Use a mesh bag to extract the juice from the blueberries in the must. Rack the remaining juice to a carboy, leaving the sediment (lees) behind. If possible, move the wine to a cooler place, like a basement, to clear. Rack the wine at least two more times before even thinking about bottling it. Add another Campden tablet to the wine after each racking. The wine should age at least three months

I have a chocolate mint making now, for the first time. I have tasted it when racking and I think it's going to be fabulous! It tastes like choc mint tea with sugar, at the moment. How it will be as a dry wine, I don't know. I do like my wine dry. The regular mint wine is not ready yet. I would leave it at least a year before drinking it, so I can't really say how it will be. It's drinkable now, and I am drinking it, if you are used to the "green" taste, but I would have preferred to leave it awhile longer. Most of them take about a year to be ready to drink. Some, like dandelion, take two years. I don't know that I would make wine from spearmint or catnip, as I am not partial to the flavour of those in tea. I usually drink it as tea first, to see if I like it. I made a gallon of lilac wine last year and didn't really like the lilac flavour. I did drink all the wine, but it wasn't a favourite. I'm just glad I didn't make 5 gallons of it! lol! I don't plan to make more regular mint wine, either. I have tasted it when racking and it is ok, but not good enough to makae 5 gallons of. At the moment I have 5-6 gallons of the following making: rhubarb, strawberry, raspberry, rose petal, crab apple. I am collecting material to make 5 gallons of ground cherry and also hibiscus petal in the freezer. I might add a few rose hips to the hibiscus since they are ready now and there's not enough to do anything with.

Hi, The peach raspberry sounds delicious! From what I've done, peaches aren't as bad as pears but they're not the fastest to clear and how long will also depend on whether you heated the peaches and / or used pectic enzyme. I've also never racked that frequently so it might influence the clearing time. Since you've used isinglass, I'd expect clearing in a week to two. I'd wait at least that long to taste and see if you're in the general area of what you like ... if it's still going or just recently stopped, the first thing that you'll taste is the yeast. If you can look past that, you'll be able to taste whether it's sweet or dry, has an alcohol bite or is rich / thin and it's a good time to taste and get an initial impression of how the wine's going to turn out. As it ages, the wine will definitely change character but the sweetness shouldn't change too much and with any luck, it will taste much better in 6 months to a year than it will now. Taste it now and as it matures and only then decide when it's ready to bottle and give to your friends. When to bottle your wine is somewhat a matter of preference. Some people like to bottle as soon as it drops clear while others like to bulk age it for a while and taste every couple of months to see how it's going. I'm more in the latter camp since it allows me to really know whether to spend my time doing dishes (i.e. cleaning many bottles) for keepers or mulling it and serving at holidays. I don't add anything prior to bottling since I'm usually waiting a year or more after fermentation stops but many people add potassium sorbate before bottling to inhibit additional fermentation and others add bisulfite - especially to reds - to sanitize the wines. I'd recommend letting the blackberry sit at least 4-6 months before bottling unless you're going to filter it. While it looks dark in a 1 gallon carboy, it'll look like a Pinot Noir or a bit lighter in a glass and the color looking through it into a light is really special. If you were doing a pyment or heavy red, I'd say don't worry but many of the berry wines are just great to see when perfectly clear in a glass. If you're seeing mold and it's not just spots of yeast fermentation, you've got a problem. If so, I'd smell it first to see if it's off and then probably dump it and start again by getting the fruit to at least 165-170 degrees before adding to the fermenter. I've tried to siphon off just the liquid on a couple of berry melomels and the bacteria is pervasive - they both got infected and resulted in dumped batches. Lots of questions keep this forum active ... please ask away! Good luck.