Have you looked at the NCHFP spaghetti sauce recipe and compared the amount of peppers and onions you used to the amounts required for spaghetti sauce?

That sauce gets put through a food mill, as I recall, so your texture is the right starting point.

If you have too many peppers and onions, you could calculate the right proportion of your juice and fresh tomatoes to get the right proportions and then cook down as required.

I haven't looked at the recipe in about a year, but that would be my first guess.

Thanks for the reply. Is this something all new canners experience?

Your suggestions will work. I only have 1-1/2 cups of onions/peppers in the juice because I made a half-batch (11 lbs of tomatoes). I can prepare my romas to bring the total up to 30 lbs (per the spaghetti sauce recipe) and add to the already made juice. Hopefully that will up the flavor of the other tomatoes. I can adjust the seasonings and add another half-cup of onions/peppers to bring it to the 2 cup total. I'd been looking at that spaghetti sauce recipe anyway.

Do you think it was the variety of tomatoes or leaving the core in when cooking that made the flavor of the juice not as good as my previous cooking with romas and coring them before cooking them? The tomatoes don't taste "off" or "bad" which wouldn't improve with a new recipe...they just don't taste like juice should. They taste more like a sauce flavor.

I don't think it was the cores that caused the problem. I have cooked tomatoes with and with out the cores (for sauce, not juice) and not noticed a difference in the final taste. And if they did add a bad taste, I imagine cores and seeds would add a bitter taste.

Maybe the juice needs more salt? Commercial juices sometimes contain a lot of salt. What about other dried spices (which are safe to add--just not fresh ones) such as celery seed to get a more juice type taste? Or a touch of paprika?

Did you add the maximum amounts of other veges? If you could add more vegetable, it might make the flavor more complex and less sauce like.

Your best bet may just be turning juice into spaghetti sauce.

And, yes, all canners make a recipe that doesn't turn out tasting similar to expectations or that is nowhere close to the commercial product you are trying to reproduce. The best ice cream sauces I have ever canned were failed jams, and my canned caponata was not so great by itself but wonderful as a sauce. I still haven't mastered a ketchup that anyone including myself will eat, but I keep trying :) Lemons into lemonade, I guess.

If you cooked the tomatoes with the skins and then strained the cooked product for the juice, you may find it's the presence of the peels that leaves an off-taste.

Not everyone objects to the flavor of tomato products cooked with peels but some do. You may be one of those people.

Carol

Does it need a bit of sugar ? I add sugar to tomato products if they taste bitter.

In addition to all the above good points, the taste/flavor of fresh-from-the-garden home-canned produce will never "match" what one is used to from commercial products. Most of us think the home canned is far better but it is an acquired taste for some. And there are some who just can't adapt unless it tastes just like store bought.

We have had posts that say things like "my husband and kids won't drink anything but Campbell's Tomato Juice and say the juice I can 'tastes funny'." I guess they are missing the tastes of the salt and chemical preservatives. ;)

But yes, if you have some you simply can't drink then just cook it down into sauce and add dried herbs to taste as Sharon said.

Dave

My tomato juice is usually not really good until I add the salt and the citric acid.

Yes, I added the maximum amount of peppers/onions allowed for a half recipe (1-1/2 cups for 11 lbs tomatoes). I added salt and oregano, and then added some more hoping to improve the taste. This was the first time I cooked with the peels though. Whether or not that was what affected the flavor, I think I'll go ahead and blanch and peel first from now on, just in case that was it.

I wasn't trying to get it to taste like commercial tomato juice--those always taste too salty to me anyway. The leftover juice from canning roma crushed tomatoes tasted really good...and without ANY seasoning or salt added. But what I really thought was good was the leftover juice from the mexican tomato sauce. Wow. Those being so good was the reason I decided to make juice in the first place!

At this point, I'm just going to make spaghetti sauce. I wanted to make that recipe anyway, and it won't be any extra work to do it. I'll just have a bigger batch than I would have planned on.

I'm thinking it might have been the variety of tomatoes, although this is only our second summer with the garden, and we have different varieties this year than last, so I don't have much to compare it with.

I really appreciate the help and advice.

Jill

Also, oregano is a spice strongly associated with tomato and pizza sauce, so the oregano may have contributed to that "sauce type" taste vs a "juice type" taste.

I usually mix paste and salad tomatoes together when making tomato products because I like the meatiness of paste and the flavor of salad tomatoes.

Just think, you will be set for pasta for next year :)

Sharon

If you're making sauce, try adding some merlot or Cabernet and a bit of fennel seed. Will help counteract the bitter flavors and increase complexity.
I like that taste combo anyway. A touch of sugar may help too.