Stephanie Long

I don’t think the method of canning matters so much. The main thing is making sure that the pH is at 4.6 or below. There are 3 methods for ensuring the pH, and you must use one of them. There are some other requirements for acidified foods, like including the batch number and date on the label. I’d recommend reading through all of the info on the…[Read more]

No. It refers to things like maple syrup and sorghum syrup.

Eli, jams and jellies sold under the cottage food law need to adhere to CFR 21 — this requirement is listed in the law itself and cannot be overridden by a health dept. So the short answer is no, what you are doing is not legal. You need to use a commercial kitchen to produce low-sugar jams. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

I’m pretty sure you need to make tonics in a commercial kitchen. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

I just checked out CFR 21 again, and although that is usually pretty confusing to me, it does look pretty clear that a blackberry jam needs a 47/55 ratio. Also, this seems correct to me… jams and jellies typically need more sugar than fruit.

In the case of the CFO jams you’ve seen in the market, that’s likely a mistake by the producer. In the…[Read more]