Try freezing them overnight first! Lots of water loss due to the cells breaking.
Drain and process from there!
Deanna

Peel and cut the tomatoes into quarters. Put in a collandar(s) and allow to drain overnight. You'll be amazed at the amount of water that runs out.

Choose a meatier plum or other type. Cut in hlaf, dig out the dees and liquid with your thumb or fingers. The rest get pushed through a Villaware strainer where all the rest of the seeds get removed as well as the skins. The result is adecent sauce without even cooking it. Using tomatoes like regular rounds, beefstakes, early girl, etc, will have a LOT of water that needs to be removed beforehand, or boiled away.

Think it was on here that I learned to cut of tomato tops and squeeze out seeds and juice before starting the rest of the process. Big time saver.-And juice is then ready to strain and process too.

The most viable method may depend on the amount you're processing. For relishes or salsas where the amount of tomatoes isn't too great, cutting the tomatoes then squeezing the seeds and "goo" works very well.

But when I'm cooking down 45 pounds of tomatoes for sauce, that is just too time-consuming. Then bringing to a boil and pouring off excess liquid is the fastest, least labor-intensive method. At least, that's how it works for me.

Carol

I cook them for a short while until they are soft and have exuded a lot of liquid, then just scoop out a lot of the thin juice using a ladle. I saw this recommended in an old ORGANIC GARDENING magazine once, and it has worked well for me. (It's much like readinglady's method, except that, being a clutz, the less I have to pick up and pour big pots of hot stuff the better, and I also think I am more likely to get ONLY liquid this way). I can the juice separately and drink it, make gazpacho with it, or use it as a poaching liquid later on.

But Deanna makes a really good point --- sometimes I've frozen tomatoes right after picking because I didn't have time to can, and then later when I canned them, found they had exuded LOTS of water from being frozen. This method is probably the most efficient in terms of removing ONLY water, leaving all the tomato-y content behind.

Zabby

I just looked in my steam juicer book. You can steam them, then wait for the clear liquid to run off. Save it and use it for cooking veggies or things in if you want. Then, you are left with the pulp part for sauce.
I just got a stainless steel steam juicer yesterday. I had an aluminum, then found a blue speckled enamel one. Then, yesterday a little old lady I know was selling her stainless steel one.
They are so great for making juice with.

I add tomato paste. I still get a great, fresh taste, and it takes a whole lot less time. It may be 'cheating', but think of all the energy and time in a hot kitchen in August that I save.

I once visited a small-scale tomato paste making facility, and they had an evaporator thing that heated the tomato juice and created a vacuum at the same time, venting the moisture outside, and thickening it up very quickly. I wondered if there was such a thing for the handy home canner, and started googling this. Not so, the ones for sale were like 3 stories high, and have a capacity of something like 40,000 lbs an hour.

I have used the ladling extra juice out method. Mostly we do the cutting the stem bit out and squeezing the seeds and liquid into a separate bowl. We strain that and can tomato juice, or use the liquid for some other cooking purpose. Works well and really speeds up the thickening process. I suppose if you are running all your tomatoes through some kind of processor to remove skin and stem area and are doing a huge quantity that takes time, but we do everything by hand, so have to cut that bit out anyway.

There is another method my husband uses sometimes, he just cans watery tomato sauce! You can tell by looking at a jar of tomato sauce if hubby made it or I did.

Marcia

I just remembered, another quick way is to do this in a wide, open electric skillet. The large surface area makes it evaporate much quicker.

Marcia,

LOL! I use your hubby's method too, sometimes.

When I'm well stocked, in fact, there's usually a fair range of thicknesses of sauce on my pantry shelves, depending on the time I spent, the method I used, and the kind of tomatoes that went into the batch.

I use the thinnest ones for soups, the thicker ones for pasta sauces, the thickest ones for pizza... until I start running out, in which case I use whatever I have got!

Zabby

For really rich sauces, i halve the tomatoes and roast them skin-side upward in a hot oven on trays until the skin begins to blacken. The water separates from the fruits to pour off, and the flesh of the maters is rich and the sugar in them barely begins to caramelize, leaving an intense tomato flavor.
It save a lot of time, and the skins slip off easily. Our family prefers no tough skin pieces in the various sauces we make.
I also do the freeze and drain method and it works well.
Enjoy!
Glad

I usually freeze tomato sauce but I think this year I will can it.

What I do:
take 75% of the tomatoes and puree them, seeds and skin and all (after removing the stem spot and any blemishes)

Take 25% of the tomatoes and blanche, removing seeds and skin. Cut in chunks, puree seeds and skin.

put in colander with a plate on top for weight, allow to drain over stock pot, use as intended

Put dry beans in stock pot with tomato juice to rehydrate for chili or something (gives them great taste)

I have been using some tomato powder as a thickener for tomatoes. There is also a great way to reduce water or liquid in tomatoes by first extracting all the juice and pulp and placing it in a big open roasting pan in the oven. Reducing the water by baking the sauce first will speed up the water removal due to the open space of a big roasting pan.

Update...

I canned my tomatoes as usual. The non paste tomatoes were halved or quarter and run through an electric strainer to remove seeds and skins. Then cooked in a large stainless stock pot for thirty minutes or so and then canned. The result was a watery tomato sauce. I usually boil for hours to thicken but this time I did not.

After sitting in the pantry for several months...
I opened five quarts of thin sauce. I poured one onto cheese cloth placed in a colander and let sit for thirty minutes. I collected the *water* for making soup. The remaining sauce was actually quite thick. The *water* was almost clear.

I dumped one quart into a medium meshed sieve. The water drained out quickly. The remaining sauce was thick. The water was not as clear as with the cheese cloth. I let the *water* sit for 30 minutes. The fine solids separated to the bottom. I poured off the *water* from the top and the rest was added to the sauce pot.

I preferred the sieve to the cheese cloth...faster and less waste, so I dumped a third quart into the sieve.

The sauce was looking too thick! so I poured the last two quarts into the pot without straining.

I ended up with a VERY THICK sauce with no need to boil down.

Zeuspaul

zeuspaul,

Thanks for the report! Very interesting.

Sometimes my tomato sauce separates so that the water cd be poured off as you describe, and sometimes not. I've read that the determining factor is how quickly it is cooked after the toms are cut open.

Now I'm wondering what amazing huge pot of something yummy you made with five quarts of sauce....

Zabby

I remove most of the water/gel and seed cavities BEFORE I put the tomatoes through the Vallaware food strainer. Usually, the result is a thick enough sauce that it looks almost like it was from a can. Less cooking is needed. Placing it in a big open flat pan and baking it a while will also remove a lot of the water. The Oxheart tomatoes are very meaty, as are many plum types. These are usually the ones you would want to make sauces with. Mine are so thick when canned, I never see any clear liquids anywhere inside.

I processed some in a boiling water bath and some in a pressure canner. The sauce in the pressure canner had more water separation showing in the jar.

The marinara was my usual. Tomato sauce, lots of pureed carrot, lots of finely minced fresh onion at the beginning and later on for various stages of cooking (never use the dry minced stuff), some larger onion pieces, minced bell pepper, fresh garlic (never use powder), red wine, olive oil, lots of basil, dill, tarregon, thyme, oregano, lots of paprika for an extra red color, lots of parsley as it helps drain swelling in my hands, a little black pepper, a dash of cayenne, a little lemon, a little vinegar,..what did I forget??

Then the wife takes over. Her favorite is turkey meatballs from Trader Joes drenched with the marinara sauce on some spaghetti.

Zeuspaul

Does anyone else bake their tomatoes? I started filling a big old roaster one year because I ran out of pans. Then I decided why not, and stuck it in the oven. The tomatoes juice nicely and I can run them through the strainer with ease, hardly a chance of scorching. And because the tomatoes are heated evenly, the juice doesn't seperate very much at all. Also, it's easy to dip off extra juices if I want a thicker product. But, it's a really big roaster, I end up with about 11 quarts of juice once the tomatoes are juiced. Also, I do bring the juice to a boil in a kettle before putting it in jars.

If you can the juice/water you've drained off to use for soups etc., how long do you process?

Use the Villaware/roma/west/Prago Trade food strainer and cut the toms in half to dig out the liquid and seeds. NO other heating, cooking or prepping is required prioer to ruuning through the food strainer. The liquid and seeds don't all need to be removed, only most. Then, run them through strainer and you have a sauce as thick as one that was cooked already. I also never use big watery tomatoes only useful for salads. I choose mostly plum and paste types that have few seeds, less liquid and more pulp. Some bake them in a shallow pan, which can reduce the water some too. Only issue is the water cooks away but not the other stuff thats also in the tomato liquid. Cooking it down more concentrates these other flavors, good or bad. I will never puree skins and seeds of tomatoes. They are just too gross to deal with, and can spoil a good sauce.

Reading the old posts from last year about Removing Water
From Tomatoes for Canning Sauce. Each of you stated that you have canned the water/juice you have drained off. I may, scratch that...I AM a dimwit but I don't know how long to process what you have collected and do you add salt or anything to it.
Thank you in advance.

Jude

What I do when making pasta sauce or salsa is to cut the tomatoes into small pieces and place in a colander. You may press down somewhat to exude more juice. I then take what was drained off and place it in a large stainless steel fry pan and start cooking it down into a sauce. By the time the pot of salsa or pasta sauce is ready to place in jars, I add the thickened sauce. Nothing down the drain.

Berrybusy inspired me to try baking. Draining off the *water* has saved me time but I haven't been satisfied with the flavor of the resulting sauce.

I had about fourteen quarts of tomatoes sitting around and I have just about canned my limit of sauce for the year.

I halved the tomatoes and dropped them in a twenty quart pot with a little red wine on the bottom of the pot to get them started. After they heated up I removed the skins with a pair of tongs. Then into two large stainless baking pans and into the oven at 250 F for a few hours. I set the oven to 185 F overnight. In the morning the sauce was thick and very tasty. My wife said it was the best sauce she has ever tasted.

The texture was better than my canned sauce as it didn't go through a strainer. I didn't notice any flavor from the seeds. I saved some for eating and the rest went into the freezer.

Surprisingly the baking pans were easy to clean.

I'll definately try this again.

Zeuspaul

Usually run thru the Squezzo, then let it sit overnight in the refer, ladle off the water.
Last year I used the food processor, looked great in the jars, but noticed water when opened, so back to the overnight method.
We shall see this year, growing all paste type maters.

Any "water" removed from the tomatoes is still tomato juice and should be processed the same as tomato juice.

When I use the strainer and made my sauce it was thicker than canned tomato sauce. The removal of the liquid and seeds prior to running in the strainer reduced the excess liquid. I never see clear liquids at the bottom of my jars of tomatoes.

I just used the freeze and drain method to reduce the amount of water in my tomatoes. Now I'm wondering, can I just can these tomatoes without heating them up first (i.e. raw pack.)? I might run them through my Victorio striner first to remove the seeds and make a sauce. The skins were easy to pull off after freezing, just about as easy as when you dip them in boiling water.

- Steve

After the tomatoes are cooked off and soft I put it into a pillow case the squeeze the excess water out. No color comes out jist plain old water.