You would only partially cook and then can in the pan juices. Instructions read: Precook meat until rare by roasting, stewing, or browning.... Then after opening the jars you can either complete the cooking, liquid and all, in a skillet - keep in mind they will have finished cooking in the PC so only browning is needed - or you can drain off the liquid and brown them well in a small amount of fat for eating. See instructions linked below. Follow only the Hot Pack instructions. I would skim off as much fat as possible before canning. Overnight in the fridge works well and then reheat it all after skimming for canning. Pork canning of any kind tends to produce more fat in the jars and may have some sealing problems as a result so remove as much of the fat as possible. If it was me I would freeze the skimmed fat to use it for browning them after opening the jars. Hope this helps. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: Canning chunks of pork NCHFP

OK, I'm coming onto this late but for what it's worth. Rather than what's called pear honey you've made pear butter, which actually calls for less sugar than a preserve, so you're just fine - different but still good. A butter you cook until you can mound some on a spoon and no liquid seeps out (no separation around the edges). You can continue to cook for a thicker product but at some point you risk caramelization of the sugar and an over-cooked taste. Thinner is better than over-cooked. If you don't boiling water bath you're not particularly at risk because you've got a high-acid product with lots of sugar. The only risk is mold and you'd know that right away through sight and smell. The problem with open-kettle canning (putting hot product into the jars and sealing without boiling water bath) is the vacuum is weaker and the risk of spoilage is somewhat higher. So it's quicker but you might end losing some of the jars because they might not keep as well. Depends on how long they sit on the shelf. Don't invert the jars. That can cause seal failures. Carol

"OK so what can I do now? Heat it all back up with more brine and reprocess?" If it has been less than 24 hours since you processed it, that is what the guidelines would recommend you do. Like I said above, use the same ingredients, hot pack it all, loose-pack the jars so that much more brine would fit in (relishes are supposed to be packed "sloshy" and then drained if needed after opening), and then BWB process. You'd need to make a double batch of the brine to have enough for the loose sloshy packing and you would need to boil the solids in the brine before filling the jars. It would still be an untested recipe so some risk would remain but the risk would be greatly reduced. If it has been more than 24 hours then the guidelines recommend it be frozen instead. Dave

"how do you know how long to boil it for with the boil water canning method? And why is it no longer safe after decades of it being okay?" How long to process them is found in any of the beets recipes that are in any of the canning books, even the very old ones. BWB processing of them has always been required, or at least from the 1923 Farmer's Bulletin series of canning pamphlets and the 1925 edition of the Ball books were published. I have an antique edition of the the Ball Blue Book of Canning from 1930's that calls for processing them submerged in a boiling water bath for 20 min. Current instructions calls for 30 mins. Your problem I think is you are using family instructions, not canning book instructions and your mother apparently chose to eliminate that step for some reason or that was how she was taught and so didn't know better. Open kettle canning recommendations were stopped based on testing research done in 1920-1922 by USDA. It only continues today in older generations because people didn't stay current with changes. I'd suggest you invest in a current edition of the Ball Blue Book or explore all the online resources available online at NCHFP. http://nchfp.uga.edu/ Dave