What specific set of instructions, what recipe did you use? You can always add a bit of sugar after opening the jar to off set the vinegar taste but most would agree that the lemon juice is much better.

However for other readers, please note that not all citric acid is made using corn sugars. Milliard's is one such brand and is made from cane sugar. Also that all the corn by-products are reportedly filtered out before the resulting acid goes through the crystallization process. I don't say that to advocate taking any risk, just that the risk is infinitesimal.

Dave

Her allergy is more of an intolerance, corn just makes her feel crappy, she's not going to die from it or anything. I'm not going to worry about trying to get some, the lemon juice will last for all of my tomatoes, but I will keep that in mind for next year.

I just used this one: https://www.freshpreserving.com/homemade-tomato-sauce-%7C-how-to-make-tomato-sauce---ball-fresh-preserving-br1268.html

Except I used vinegar at 2 tbsp per pint. I added a little sugar to my spaghetti sauce, and it helped a little, but still tasted like I blended a pickle into the sauce. I've heard it might mellow as it ages, we'll see.

You only need 1 T per pint-- 2 per quart.

Everything I read said twice as much vinegar as lemon juice.

True. I think lacey was referring to the lemon juice requirement. But you do need 2x as much vinegar as bottled lemon (or bottled lime) juice. And that is one big advantage to citric acid as it only requires 1/4 tsp per pint so any flavor change is minimal.

Dave