Whoopsie, forgot lemon juice...

[aggieterpkatie]

I just put all my jars (4 pints and 5 half pints) of tomato juice in the canner and checked my Ball book for processing time and realized I forgot the lemon juice. :/ Do you think it'll matter? Shouldn't the tomatoes be acidic enough by themselves? The juice is made of Sungolds and nothing added but a little salt.

 

[curly_kate]

I've been canning tomatoes for about 3 years now, and haven't ever used lemon juice. I haven't found that it makes much of a difference (in my short experience), so I think you'll be OK.

 

[keljonma]

I guess that depends on the acidity of your tomatoes. If you're canning tomatoes not specifically bred to be low acid you should be fine. Some varieties are bred to be low-acid and the lemon juice is needed for safe water bath canning, according to the course I took through the OSU Extension office.

 

[freemotion]

Yes, sadly, the danger is botulism in canning low-acid tomatoes. Heirlooms should be fine. No clue about sungolds.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Well crap. Do you think I should re-can them (keeping them in the same can) with the pressure canners? Or should I re-open all of them and add lemon juice and re-process? I don't want to do all that extra work, but I really would rather do that than drink a tomato-botulism juice.

 

[keljonma]

Personally, I would add the lemon juice and put them through water bath again.

Whether you water bath or pressure can, to reprocess, you need to start all over with clean jars, clean rings, new lids and follow the recipe as if doing it the first time.

 

[FarmerDenise]

Yellow tomatoes are usually lower in acid, so I hate to say it, but you probably should add the lemon juice or maybe just refridgerate them and use them soon.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Ok. Guess I'll just start over. At least it wasn't a huge amount of jars.

 

[freemotion]

Personally, with that small amount, I'd just freeze them if you have the room. You can even transfer them to ziplocs to save space. Or put the jars right into the pressure canner. That way you don't have to dump them out and clean new jars, etc. I never sterilize jars/lids for pressure canning....nothing will survive 240 F!! But replace the flat lids just to make sure they seal properly.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Free, I don't have the freezer space but I *do* have some fridge space I could put them in. Do you think that's safe enough? They've been sitting out on the counter all night. And if I was going to re-can them I decided I'd just use quart jars this time. I hate the narrow mouth quart jars but htey're fine for liquids.