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Recently my MIL came over to show my husband and I how to do some canning. We made diced tomatoes, salsa and pasta sauce. We cooked the diced tomatoes, placed in jars and put in water bath. We did the same with the salsa. We realized though, that the water in the water bath was only going to 190 degrees Fahrenheit and not boiling, so we left the jars in for 45 minutes. We did have to press down on some lids, but they all stayed down. Is this safe?

My MIL had us wet the jars, place in oven at 250 degrees Fahrenheit and place boiling pasta sauce in jars. Same thing, we had to push down the lids eventually but all stayed down. Is this safe?

Lastly, we weren’t aware that you should take the rings off the jar for storage, and we didn’t for a couple weeks. Is this a problem?

I’m new to canning, and also very weird about food not being stored correctly.

Thanks so much.

Greybeard
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Linny
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  • Did you bake the sauce in the jars at 250? If so for how long? – GdD Sep 14 '22 at 14:01
  • No, we just boiled the pasta sauce on the stove before placing it in the hot jars – Linny Sep 14 '22 at 14:39
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    The answer to each depends on the recipe you used, as the amount of salt and acidity will determine whether it's safe or not, however my initial answer is that you didn't do this safely as boiling isn't hot enough, tomatoes, salsa and pasta sauces need to be pressure canned. – GdD Sep 14 '22 at 14:43
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    It really doesn't matter what temperature the oven is: water will not go above normal boiling temperature (roughly 218F) at atmospheric pressure. The only way you can get water hot enough to kill botulin spores is to use a pressurized vessel which raises the boiling point of the water inside of it. – JimmyJames Sep 14 '22 at 20:19

1 Answers1

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No, it is not.

Diced tomatoes and tomato sauce can be low-acidity foods, Nearly all recipes call for adding an acid. Without adding an acid and proper processing of jars, you risk botulism and a few other toxins. They can be canned in a water bath (if acidified below pH 4.6) or pressure canner (if not). Follow the recipe!

The odds of getting botulism for any particular jar are very low -- folks are able to can unsafely for years. But the consequences of doing so are severe. Most of the botulism deaths in the USA have been related to home-canned tomatoes.

Removing the rings prevents rust.

FuzzyChef
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  • So I should just toss the jars to be safe? I'm okay with this as I don't really want to risk getting family sick. Thank you for your quick reply. – Linny Sep 14 '22 at 15:30
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    Removing the rings is needed to clean anything that came out when exhausting the jars, helps prevent rusting the rings into immobility in storage, and makes it very clear when a seal has failed in storage. And even your link correctly identifies `all vegetables (except for most tomatoes).` when specifying what are low-acid foods. Way off track here. – Ecnerwal Sep 14 '22 at 15:34
  • Added link specifically addressing tomatoes. – FuzzyChef Sep 14 '22 at 15:50
  • If anything other than air exhausted out of the jar, then that jar is no good. Ring or no ring. – FuzzyChef Sep 14 '22 at 15:50
  • @Linny: To avoid wasting the food (and time/effort), it *might* be safe to eat the lower-acidity food now, hopefully before any concentrations of toxins have time to build up. But I don't know for sure if a jar you prepared in the last week is much less likely to be dangerous than after it sits for months or years. I'd guess so since your procedures were *pretty* good; you'd have eliminated most of the dangers, but that's just a guess. Perhaps some better-informed people could shed some light on it, or do some research on botulism growth rates yourself. – Peter Cordes Sep 14 '22 at 20:41
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    The main "salvaging" opportunity would be to open one each of the jars and ph-test the contents. If it's below 4.6, then the rest of the jars are OK. – FuzzyChef Sep 15 '22 at 00:03
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    Boiling the food before consumption destroys bacteria and toxins. Heating up your tomato sauce to >85°C for >5 min makes it safe. Botulism concerns mostly food consumed cold. (IIRC, most botulism cases concern traditional indigenous seafood preserves.) From https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/botulism. – Peter - Reinstate Monica Sep 15 '22 at 08:49
  • I should perhaps add that while boiling before consumption *should* make the food safe the CDC plainly recommends to [throw it out](https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/communication/home-canning-and-botulism.html). The situation is probably comparable to using condoms for contraception: When everything goes right it is quite safe, but since a number of things can go wrong the "epidemiological result" is much worse than the theory, and the "risk" is substantial. – Peter - Reinstate Monica Sep 15 '22 at 09:03