Yes. The guidelines call for 4 T of vinegar per quart vs. 2 T of bottled lemon juice but notes it may result in an undesirable flavor change.

Acidification directions

Dave

Thanks! Has anyone tried the balsamic vinegar? How did it work for you?

In past discussions here about using the vinegar alternative it hasn't been a popular result and most of the books list it only as a sort of last resort. Don't know if using balsamic would improve those odds or not.

When you make the tomato sauce why not try a small separate dish with the vinegar added and see if you like it before doing the whole batch with it. If you don't care for it going into the jar, you won't like it coming out of the jar either. :) If not then you'd still have the option of using the citric acid instead for the rest.

Dave

Personally I would not use balsamic vinegar. Not because of the acid percentage factor, but because you are using an expensive finishing vinegar as a cooking ingredient and kind of destroying the vinegar flavor during the sauce and canning. Kind of like using extra virgin olive oil to saute garlic and onions at the beginning of a sauce- it's a waste of finishing oil when the base olive oil (or even better pomice oil) would be better to use.

Even the stress of canning can seriously mess with the taste of the beauty of the finish that real balsamic vinegar has.

If I were going to do a replacement like that.. I would use some molasses as a partial replacement for the sugar in the recipe- if sugar is being used in the recipe- a quarter to half the sugar can be replaced by molasses. If it's a straight up tomato sauce with nothing else, I would add 3 tablespoons of molasses per gallon of sauce to give that deep rich flavor that balsamic otherwise gives. And use cider vinegar instead of lemon juice or white vinegar per jar for the more "earthy" kind of tart flavor and proper acidification.
As Dave noted- you do indeed use more vinegar than lemon juice, and that can mess with the flavor. And lemon juice does not really add that much to the flavor of the sauce, where as doubling up the amount in vinegar will for sure change the flavor, and using double in balsamic would seriously change the flavor.

Can the sauce plain using either citric acid or lemon juice then add balsamic vinegar to taste upon opening a jar. 4 tablespoons balsamic per quart might be a bit much. And plain sauce will be much more versatile than a balsamic sauce.

Rodney

Absolutely! I would can up my tomato sauce super plain... then add all the other details after un-lidding that sauce.
If you want oil to saute up garlic and onion- better to do that on fresh eating and add that plain tomato sauce. Want balsamic to dress up the sauce? Better to add that at the end of the sauce too.

But always, always, always, best by far to add the right amount of lemon juice, citric acid, or if you gotta, the vinegar (my preference with cider for tomato stuff) for basic canning, then add to that from there once you open your canning jars.

Actually... I've just gotten off two rounds of canning up crush/diced tomatoes in pints- two gallons into 16 pints, and got three more bags that equal three more gallons of canning in the freezer. 8 pints, 12 half pints of tomato juice. Two quarts of dehydrated tomato slices, three quarts of smoked dehydrated tomato wedges.

I've been canning for a few years now too.

But I always error on the side of too much acid- every time, every batch. I would rather over acid my batch of tomatoes and add a bit more sugar on cooking than kill the family with something nasty. And really, lemon juice don't taste like squat even when overdone in tomatoes. And I would always rather plain Jane my tomatoes and dress them up later in cooking than short them during processing and be unhealthy.
And if nothing else.. ever eat a spoonful or few of commercial canned tomato product? If you have not, I recommend you do it right now.

Thanks so much for the feedback. In the meantime, I decided to go with the lemon juice. Unfortunately, I ran out and had to use the vinegar anyway. So I set it up as an experiment:

4 Quarts with lemon juice

1 quart with 1 T lemon and 2 T balsamic

1 quart with 2 T cider and 2 T balsamic

1 quart with 4 T cider

I am glad there were only 3 experiments! I figure if they won't work for pasta sauce I can make something that is supposed to be sweet and sour with them.

I will report back after I taste them. That won't be for a while, though because this is my third batch. All the others have just lemon juice.

Thanks again for the great suggestions.