A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Hobbies, Crafts and Creativity Our Favorite Recipes Novice at Canning needs help

Thank you in advance. I have been canning my excess container grown tomatoes and the seals on all of my jars seem good. However can someone tell me if the air bubbles i am seeing at the top of my jars mean i did it wrong? Will these jars rot if i do not refrigerate?

A few things.
1) when you can tomatoes in their own juice, as tomatoes cook and make juice some bubbles appear. This is because the tomato tissue will release the air that was in the call tissue.
2) Sometimes the food was boiled so hard after being canned air becomes trapped in various places.

Botulism is the issue here. Just because a jar is sealed does not mean it will not spoil..
But if you put enough salt in the tomatoes when you were adding to the jars, there will likely not be a problem...
also..
my mother always ran a butter knife down in the filled canning jars of tomatoes and salt
(salt is a preservative) to help any air bubbles escape.

IMO if you are concerned you could open the jars, use a knife or say a long spoon, to help the air to release and reprocess them with new flats.

2 things..
1) I freeze all my tomaties.(so I am not a canner).
I measure a 15 oz can of cut up tomatoes and put them in a quart labeled freezer bag. Lie flat on a lipped cookie sheet in the freezer. When frozen I pile them into my chest freezer.
2) hopefully someone who is a proficient canner will come by and give you much more qualified advice.

Good luck !

Thank you so much! and the freezing idea is something I have considered. I do freeze the salsa i make from my tomatoes and that seems to do well.
As far as the salt goes, i have added canning salt and some lemon juice to each batch based on recipes I have looked at. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something, as I do use a utensil to slide own the sides when packing. I am sort of using a hybrid method. I broil the tomato halves and then remove the skin. I then pack each jar with salt and lemon juice (for a 1/2 pint jar i am using 1/4 tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp of lemon juice) and ladle in some boiling water to top them off, then slide the utensil in and press against the sides. For whatever reason i am still getting the little bubbles. Anyway thank you for sharing and I hope you and your family are well!

Are you then placing those filled bottles in a canner to process? You have to process tomatoes in a boiling water bath to preserve them to kill any spores.