Fruit in honey

Enjoy your blogs and so forth… Very informative and innovative. However, I see a bit of a problem in one area…

People write in asking about making creamed honey. I am a beekeeper (just for the record). Folks really need to be super careful about adding juice to their creamed honey. Honey has a shelf life that is forever, given it has the correct moisture content. This content is extremely low (about 18%?). I read all the time in the American Bee Journal (put out by Dadant) that adding juice or other liquid to creamed honey can increase the moisture content. Beekeepers are careful not to extract honey before the bees are done with it (capped). The bees cap it when the moisture content is correct (wonderful insects that bees are). If honey is extracted too soon with too high of a moisture content it will FERMENT! Same with creamed honey if the moisture content is too high. If adding juice or fresh fruit to creamed honey, the resulting product MUST be refrigerated or risk fermentation. The honey houses (Dadant, A.I. Root, Mann Lake, and many others) sell flavoring for creamed honey which is a lot safer alternative if someone is looking for a shelf stable product.

Also…Honey should NEVER be heat treated. Doing so takes away all of the benefits of raw honey. All honey needs, after extracting and being either allowed to sit to allow debris to rise or being run through a mesh filter, is to be put into clean, perfectly-dry jars and capped. It will stay good for years and years to come.

Tami
Bridgeport, Texas

Thanks for your comments and information. The more we know, the fewer mistakes we all make along the way! — Jackie

Canning soup base

I don’t seem to find a recipe for pressure canning a soup base consisting of onions, celery, carrots, and garlic. Please help!

Anna-Marie Flemming
Calgary, Alberta

This is one you’ll have to tweak yourself. If it was me, I’d start out with about 7 quarts of water and add your diced onions (about 3 medium), sliced celery (about 7 stalks), diced carrots (about 1 pound), and minced garlic (about 3 cloves). Season to suit your tastes — salt, pepper, herbs. Pressure can at 10 pounds pressure for 30 minutes. If you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet, consult your canning book for directions on increasing your pressure to suit your altitude, if necessary. — Jackie

3 COMMENTS

  1. But you could still can it in smaller jars and not as as much liquid. You would add just enough to make it a liquid instead of a paste or puree. It would still be “condensed”, but safe to can. If you use broth instead of water, I would think you’d need to pressure can it. Not sure how long broth/stock in the mirepoix needs to be processed. Rule of thumb is to process a batch of “mixed” foods for the longest time required for any food. So if tomatoes needed 10 minutes, onions needed 15 mins, celery needed 10 mins. and broth needed 45 minutes, you’d process the batch for 45 minutes. (times aren’t accurate!) And if all but one thing could be water bathed, you’d still need to pressure can it because of the one thing.

  2. Zelda,

    You could sure can up your mirepoix with water or broth, but canning it without liquid would be about the same as canning pureed pumpkin; not enough liquid/juice to ensure that the heat in the center of the jars would be adequate for safe processing.

    Jackie

  3. Classic mirepoix (the onion, carrot, celery mix used as a soup, sauce and stew base) is 50% onion, 25% carrot and 25% celery sauteed for s short time in a bit of olive oil to bring out the flavors before it is added to the dish. I add some garlic. Usually the veggies are cut in very small pieces so they mush into the soup/sauce/stew during cooking. If you were to can it maybe larger pieces would be better. I’m not a canner, so my question is based on total ignorance, but would it simplify the canning process to cook up the mirepoix, then add a cup or whatever suits to a prepared quart canning jar and fill it with hot stock or broth or even water. If the vegetables are finely cut and sauteed I would think canning would cook them enough that they would be mushy and an ideal soup base. Usually for vegetable soup you cook twice as much mirepoix as you would for any other dish. If you put twice as much in some jars they could be labeled as vegetable soup base. Another question for canners: could you make a huge batch of mirepoix and can it in half pint or pint jars, without any liquid, and have it ready to toss into whatever you are cooking? I use a lot of it, and what a great convenience food that would be.

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