Sherrie, if they are sealed, they are safe. The danger is that they may come unsealed, but you will be able to check for that before you open them. Since applesauce is acidic, botulism is not a concern, so a bad seal may result in problems like mold that you will see or smell, and you can throw the jar away. For an extreme seal test, use gardenlad's method & shake the jar upside down over a bowl. You might as well use those jars first, too, but you don't need to refrigerate them.

Thick applesauce always seems to get bubbles in it, just ask "Tiny Bubbles" Annie. I believe the only way to get rid of them is to make thinner applesauce, so I just live with the bubbles.

Melissa

If they oozed and have a lot of bubbles, your sauce is too thick. Check a jar of applesauce in the stores, you will see how much thinner it is. Not saying you have to get it that thin, but thinner than you had it to correct the problems.
They can come unsealed, so do as Melva has suggested.

Covered by water, by how much? "Head space" is the space between the top of the ingredients and the edge of the glass jars rim. The water over the jars in the water bath should be 2 inches. I came across a jar of commercial apple sauce that my deceased dad bought, maybe 20 years ago. It looks like its still safe, but has turned from the light apple color to a light brown. I don't plan to use it, and will toss it due to its age. My recent apple butter is dark, but thats due to the added dried apples I added (pureed) as well as lots of cinnamon and other spices, and a little dark molasses, along with added acid blend (malic, citric, and tarteric crystals) and Splenda instead of sugar. Tastes quite spicy with all that cinnamon I added., but its an apple butter not a sauce.

Ken, I believe Sherrie was saying she had the jars covered by 1-2" of boiling water, and as a separate note the headspace inside the jars was 1/2". Sherrie, you don't want more headspace than that because if all the air doesn't exhaust you won't get a vacuum seal, so you did right. As Linda Lou says, applesauce is supposed to be thinner. I like mine thick, so I let it seep out if it must, and I check the seals carefully & look out for mold when I open the jar. Every jar from last year stayed sealed.

Melissa

Thanks for clarifying that Melissa, that is correct; I didn't word that sentence quite right, did I?

What a relief, they are ok!! I'm stockpiling applesauce!!
Thank you Melissa and Linda Lou, I appreciate all your help. Its wonderful having experienced canners here to glean info from, makes the whole canning experience much more enjoyable (and a lot less worrisome)! Now, on to the next 2 bags of apples........and there are PLENTY more to be picked off my trees!!! Sherrie

Sherrie, I'm late to the party, but my applesauce ALWAYS has bubbles, enough that the old Don Ho song "Tiny Bubbles" became my trademark for a season, with Linda Lou rewriting the lyrics just for me. LOL

I also like thick and chunky applesauce, so I live with the bubbles and the occasional unsealed jar. I have learned that too thick doesn't work well, though, I had escaping applesauce for a while there!

I'll keep you company, I'm picking apples next weekend and anything that isn't sauce is going into the cider press! Well, I might have to make some Maple Apple Jam and there is that sugarfree pie filling for Dad, but other than that...(grin)

Annie

Mmm, Annie do you make hard cider too? There used to be a lot of local cider in VA but after the Odwalla case where someone got E. coli from unpasteurized juice, they changed the law to say juice had to be pasteurized, and all the cider presses closed down. The stores had signs saying "last ever of Maupin's cider" and stuff. I'm not sure whether this was a national law or what. Of course there's hardly any risk if you're not using apples off the ground, but I guess the government can't trust anyone. I like to spite them by "buying" raw goat's milk cheese at the farmer's market. He gives away the cheese but accepts donations to help the legal fight against the raw cheese ban.

Melissa

Melissa, what farmer's market is that? I'm also in VA, and I hate that ridiculous ban.

I had some salsa squeeze out the top last time, but I didn't realize it until I took the rings off the jars and it was cooked outside the rim. Another reason to remove the rings! Can you imagine how nasty it would have been after a few months? Blech.

Julie

Does anyone know why apple butter gets cooked until it is really thick and you only give it a one fourth inch headspace, while applesauce is thinner and has a half inch headspace. I had some ooze with the apple butter I made today.

Melly, I've often wondered that myself. I seldom have trouble with the apple butter, but often have trouble with the apple sauce. Go figure.

Melissa, I've never made hard cider, I'm not much of a drinker. I owned a bar for a couple of decades and it really spoiled the fun in drinking for me. LOL I have a friend who would really like to try it though, and I've offered to supply him with raw cider.

As for my cider, I pick the apples right off my trees and my trees are separate from the animals' pasture space. I also wash them before pressing, in spite of all the "rules" about wild yeast on the unwashed apples being necessary for proper flavor. I don't can it because when it gets cooked, it just becomes apple juice. I freeze mine in quart canning jars.

Before anyone asks, no, I've never had one break. As for any prohibition about unpasteurized cider, I only press enough for my own family's use, we don't sell any.

Annie

I removed the rings and cleaned up the jars this morning. I was generous with the 1/4 inch headspace but the apple butter appears to have expanded (hence the ooze) and it doesn't look like there is any headspace left. I'll have to keep an eye on those jars. They all sealed though.

I would conjecture that the really thick stuff oozes up & expands less BECAUSE it is so thick --- it'd take a heck ofa big bubble to get apple butter a half-inch higher than its surface. But maybe I'll ask my physiscist friends....

Annie, I just froze a bunch of chicken soup in three-cup canning jars. I was careful to leave generous head space, and even left the lids on very loosely overnight in case it expanded a lot. In them morning I checked and was astonished at how little it had expanded --- risen maybe a quarter inch, tops. This may be a testament to the thickness & chunkiness of the soup, mind you.

I HAVE seen liquid expanding break glass, mind you; I once stashed a bottle of white wine someone brought to dinner in the freezer in order to chill it quickly --- then forgot about it. It DID break and make a right mess. But one thing I do remember from physics class is that alcohol expands & contracts a lot more than water in reaction to temperature changes. Though with freezing, it is the ice crystal formation, I believe, that causes the expansion.

Zabby, babbling because she doesn't want to go back to work....

Zabby, I usually leave about an inch of headspace, sometimes more and never cap the lids tightly, just in case. The cider does expand enough that I can notice, but never enough to break those jars.

I've never put wine in the freezer but the kids have left bottles (or cans) of soft drinks in there accidentally and it always "explodes". Of course, then I make them clean up the mess and I get the freezer defrosted with no energy expenditure of my own, so it's not all bad. LOL

Annie

Julie, the raw goat cheese is at the city market in Charlottesville, 7-noon every Saturday. I have not been yet this year, but the guy was there every time last year. Also the cheesemaker from Everona Dairy, the most delicious cheese I've ever had, made from sheep's milk and similar to manchego.

I'm in Richmond now so I go to Pole Green Produce near the intersection of Pole Green Rd & Lee-Davis Hwy in Hanover county. Hanover tomatoes for .99/lb in all colors & shapes.

Have any advice on cheap apples? All the web-savvy orchards are asking $35/bushel & up!

Zabby, I froze two pints of Shirley's veg juice cocktail that didn't seal. I didn't add more headspace, just loosened the lid, and they did fine.

Melissa

$35 a BUSHEL? OMG, Melissa, I'll never complain about my $8 a bushel apples again. Never. I think I'll shut up about the $20 a bushel peaches too, the most I've ever paid.

Annie

Annie, I remember last year you said you could get a bushel of apples for $6. My friends make a giant kettle of apple butter, maybe 55 gallons, and they paid $13/bushel last year even with the large quantity they needed. Problem is, those cheap orchards aren't online. Maybe I'll find out where they got theirs. It's over an hour drive to their house, but there's a peach orchard nearby so if I time it right in the season I can do your "peach jam for a cold morning" the same weekend. Wish I could do peach-raspberry jam, but the berry farm with fall raspberries is over an hour in the opposite direction!

That 55 gallons of apple butter is something to see. They grind the apples a few days in advance & let them start to ferment, then add tons of sugar in a huge copper kettle over an outdoor fire. Last year toward the end they decided it wasn't quite sweet enough & added another 50-lb bag of sugar! The thing is, they open-kettle can it, zillions of quarts. One year they stacked the jars back in the boxes while hot, and a bunch hadn't sealed by the second day, so they started moving the boxes to check the ones on the bottom. Lo & behold, once they started cooling, they started pinging like crazy. I know fruit butters are pretty low-risk, but I was a little surprised at how nonchalant they were about it. Maybe I fret too much over my canning, but what about a happy, safe medium?

Melissa

I agree, Melissa, fruit butters are pretty low risk, they can mold and spoil, though, and if I had that much apple butter I don't think I'd want to risk losing a bunch of it.

Apples are a bit more expensive this year than they were last year because we got a couple of hail storms early in the season. Many of the apples are "scarred" from the hail and people don't want to buy those, they are being marketed for "deer apples" mostly. The perfect ones are more expensive because the crop is smaller. Ah, the life of a farmer!

Annie