What is the source of the recipe? That is often enough to tell if it is safe or not given all the unsafe recipes floating around on the web. There are so many tested and approved canning recipes for Apple Butter available why use one from an unknown source? Teach her the importance of using recipes only from the approved sources.

As for this recipe, for some reason the crockpot approach has caught on with some even though it is an energy wasteful method - 10 hours of electricity vs. maybe 2 hours. But that alone isn't a safety issue as long as the crockpot gets it hot enough to boil.

But this recipe has no added acid (lemon juice, vinegar, cider) like most of the tested recipes call for - added margin of safe pH. So if she really wants to use this one then she needs to be very sure of the pH of the fruit she uses and no windfall apples can be used without adding the acid.

Has she bought a current issue of the Ball Blue Book for all the current guidelines?

Dave

I used the crockpot regularly for apple butter when I was working. I'd make the "sauce" one night, put it in the crockpot the next morning, go to work all day, check and stir when I got home and can it that night. It worked really well for me because otherwise I had to wait until the weekend to make apple butter or stay up for hours until I was done.

Some apple butter recipes have no added acid, notably one from University of Oregon, one from University of Minnesota and one from the National Center for Home Food Preservation, the one that uses artificial sweetener. So, as Dave mentions, I'd be very sure of my apples, I wouldn't use windfalls or drops and I think I'd probably take the extra precaution of peeling them before making the apple butter instead of cooking apple chunks with the peels and cores still in and then putting them through the food mill. I usually do that anyway, since I have one of those handy-dandy peeler/slicer/corer gadgets and the grandkids just LOVE to play with it. Double bonus, I get free labor, LOL.

The recipe seems pretty straight forward, except that I've never seen vanilla added to apple butter, that's very interesting. I might have to try that...

I also agree with Dave that beginning canners should get a copy of the newest Ball Blue Book. They're available at Walmart, on Amazon, etc., and cost less than $10. It's a valuable resource. Also try the National Center for Home Food Preservation available on line and free.

Annie

Dave,

Is there any way for the typical home cook to test the pH of foods? I know that the apples used were store-bought, so I would assume they were tree-picked, not windfalls. I don't suppose that (store bought apples) would be enough to make this safe for canning?

I looked at my local Walmart for the Ball Blue Book, bit did not find it. I guess I'll need to check Amazon.

I used the apple butter directions this year from the NCHFP, and it uses a full cup of vinegar for four pounds of apples. It's undetectable and turned out the best danged apple butter I ever made and I've made plenty. I was only going to make one batch, but ended up knowing I'd regret not doing more, so I did. I used my slow cooker, because it does bring it up to boiling and processed my load a full ten minutes, instead of the five for pints so I wouldn't have to add the sterile jar routine. With such excellent results from a tested and safe recipe, why even bother with worrying about others?

Calliope, the only reason to try others is that taste is not objective, it's subjective. What you think is the best you've ever made might not be what I, or the original poster or my mother or someone else likes. So, I make a batch and then think it needs more cloves or less sugar or whatever, and then I find a new recipe and I try that! That's the fun of it for me, trying a new thing. I do stick to approved recipes, though, even though fruit is "relatively" safe. The addition of vanilla really intrigues me, it's not a flavor that I normally associate with apple butter...

Annie

This was said almost tongue in cheek, because I really agree with your take on it, but that being said there is not so much deviation in the ingredients of apple butter, other than the spices which one adds to taste anyway. The OP is quoting a pretty standard recipe with questions simply about
acidification and whether one can use crockpots to simmer it before processing. You are an experienced canner, and know the drill backward and forward and I was really addressing the novice canner who is unsure of safety when translating recipes. I wanted to assure them that those presented in the NCHFP are for the most part pretty basic, absolutely safe and I've not found one yet I that aren't excellent, and rival my old, handed down family ones. Also that the vinegar in the NCHFP version is not really noticeable, and in fact I think improves the end product, making it not so flat and cloying.......more like a pickled, spiced apple.

I love all the input I am getting. I have been canning for decades. My mother canned all her life, but primarily pickles/pickled things. About 35 years ago she and I created a recipe for garden salsa and I helped her can it while I was still at home and have been canning it on my own for 25+ years. After my mother passed 6 years ago, I started branching out. Bought a pressure canner, canned beans for the first time, and started pressure canning some of the tomatoes, etc that I put up.

I have never made apple butter. I'm not sure I'd even tasted apple butter until my now daughter-in-law gave me a jar last fall. When she started talking about making and canning it this year since I taught her about canning in the height of tomato season, I started to ponder if her recipe was safe. That's how all this started.

In the last week I've started collecting necessary ingredients to try a batch myself. I was feeling OK about the NCHFP recipe with all that vinegar mostly because @calliope mentioned that it was undetectable. Now I pause, when you add that it is < more like a pickled, spiced apple. >. You see, I'm not a fan of pickled anything...I think it's from all those years in the kitchen with my dear mother making those nasty smelling dill pickles/sweet pickles/bread & butter pickles/dilly beans.....

A question about the NCHFP recipe: It calls for 8 pounds of apples. At what state are the apples weighed? I plan to peel and core before I start the cooking process. I haven't decided if I'll use the crock pot or stove top method.

It doesn't tasted 'pickled' itsmce. I just is not flat and mild. It's like that squirt of lemon juice in a berry pie, bringing out the intensity of flavors of other ingredients.

Agree there is no 'pickled' taste to the NCHFP recipe. Admittedly taste is subjective but I think most of us can agree on what tastes 'pickled'. The NCHFP recipe is by far the wife and my favorite of all the recipes we have tried over the years.

But that said, I think Applebuter is an acquired taste. Not all will like it no matter what recipe is used. Some hate cloves, some want extra, some hate cinnamon, some want even more, etc. All anyone can do is experiment, try several recipes and see which they prefer. Just as long as it is safe to consume right from the jar it is your choice. When it comes to safety, I'd be much more concerned about a "created garden salsa recipe" as that is 10X more risky than than any Applebutter recipe.

Dave

As an addition to this conversion, I just purchased the new Ball Blue Book and gifted it to a young mother who is a neighbor of mine and who has canned only applesauce and strawberry jam, definitely a beginner and she's called to ask a couple of questions. I directed her to NCFHFP on-line and then picked up the Ball Blue Book.

That issue of the Ball Blue Book has two apple butter recipes and neither one of them call for vinegar or any other additional acidity, so I'm comfortable with the recipe posted by the OP. I don't care for the vinegar in apple butter (I also don't like balsamic vinegar on fruit) so I was glad to see that Ball still thinks that I don't need it in the apple butter.

I canned 3 pints, 5 twelve ounce jars and 9 half pints of apple butter and forgot to add vanilla to any of them. I guess I'll just have to make some more, what a hardship. (grin)

As an added bonus, I did the entire batch in my 18 quart Nesco roaster. I just filled it to the brim with apples, added enough apple juice to keep the apples from sticking until they softened, turned it on 350F, stirred it a couple of times and went out to build nests for the new chicken coop. I stirred it when I came in, and in a couple of hours I used the potato masher to mash things up, added the sugar and spices and cooked it until it was "thick enough". Then I canned it, and got the yield above, all in one batch.

Annie

OK, so I ended up doing a bit of a combination of the recipe above and the NCHFP recipe. I put the peeled apple slices (about 6 pounds) in the crock pot along with the apple cider and apple cider vinegar. Went a bit too far and added the sugar and spices at this time too. In the crock pot by 5pm. Left it on all night, covered. In the morning the apples were somewhat soft, but certainly not falling apart, and there was plenty of liquid...lots of liquid. So, I broke out my food mill attachment for the Kitchen Aid mixer and scooped the apple slices out of the liquid in the crock pot and ran them through the food mill. I then cooked the apple pulp in a heavy pot on the stove top over pretty low heat. I added in a little bit of the liquid, after all, this is where all the sugar and spices were (and the vinegar). I added maybe a half cup of brown sugar, some more cinnamon, and cooked until it was a splattering goop. When the consistency was about right, I canned it. It turned out very tasty and all the jars sealed. Processed for 10-15 minutes.

So, yes, I used vinegar during the cooking process, but only a portion of the vinegar actually ended up in the jars. I'm not sure this would qualify as using the NCHFP recipe. One thing that I couldn't work out in my mind from the NCHFP recipe: Is all the liquid added at the beginning supposed to end up absorbed/evaporated? It talks of using a food mill, but it wasn't clear to me if the pulp is added back to the liquid and then cooked down or if the liquid is discarded and the apple pulp added to a new pan to which the sugars and spices are added and then cooked to consistency.

Per the NCHFP instructions:

"Cook slowly in cider and vinegar until soft. Press fruit through a colander, food mill, or strainer. Cook fruit pulp with sugar and spices, stirring frequently."

So you cook all the apples in the cider and vinegar. During that cooking the apples will absorb some of the acids, some will cook off, and some drains off or remains in the cooking pan when run through the food mill - unless you were to just pour it all in which I wouldn't. Then you cook down the soupy pulp that comes out of the food mill in the sugar and spices to the desired thickness.

Dave