Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Applesauce Numbers For Future Reference

I want to keep track of how many apples I canned, what they cost, where I bought them, how many quarts they yielded, etc.... I usually don't write these details down and forget from year to year.


We drove a couple hours to the Amish orchard. We went on October 18th and they still had plenty of apples. We bought 2 bushels of golden delicious apples.

The price was $16 per bushel for bag-it-yourself apples. We didn't have to pick any apples. They were in a large bin and we just had to put them into the bag ourselves. The apples were big and beautiful. They didn't have any blemishes. No doubt they had been sprayed with chemicals. Oh well. I didn't have to cut out any worm holes. :)

The bags of apples sat on the floor in our foyer for 12 days. The conditions weren't the best for storing apple because it got a little warmer than ideal in that room.  One apple rotted and two others had bad spots.

We probably ate 3+ pounds of apples fresh. Before I turned them all into applesauce.

Yesterday, (10/30/17) I canned applesauce. I started at around 11 a.m. and finished at 6 p.m. Everything went smoothly. I didn't have to stop progress to do any other duties. Since the apples didn't have any worm holes cutting them up was easy. I just quartered the apples and put them into pots to cook. No peeling, no coring. It couldn't be easier. I was able to keep at least two pots of apples cooking on the stove and 2 pots ready to process at all times. I put 2 cups of water in the apple pots to keep them from burning. That amount of water seemed to be just enough to make the applesauce a good consistency. So, I didn't have to pour any water off before processing.

When the apples were good and soft (they were falling apart when stirred) I pulled them off the heat and ran them through my Victorio strainer. While the sauce was still hot I ladled it into clean quart jars. When I had 7 jars finished they went into the canner.

They were water bathed for 20 minutes. I was able to keep up with the canner and had a batch to put in as soon as one load came out, or almost ready (I just had to ladle sauce into a few jars). I used all of the apples and canned 40 quarts.
We are going to enjoy all that sauce!

4 comments:

Sarah said...

Homemade applesauce is such a treat throughout the long winter months! I have yet to make applesauce this year, but I am hoping to do so soon. : ) All of your jars lined up look lovely!

Anonymous said...

Your applesauce in the jars look pretty impressive! You certainly worked hard. Have you tried applesauce cookies? It's a favorite at our house. Love MK

Sister in the Mid-west said...

Thank you, MK! :) I have never had applesauce cookies before. We will have to try them sometime.:)

Aliesha Hartlaub said...

I didn't know you could do applesauce with the peels and cores! That would save so much time.