Everywhere I go, I see apple trees and apples. A lot of them I have seen for the first time. It is amazing how many are along the road, presumably because someone through a core out the window. Unfortunately for me, my tree has a cluster of five apples on it. I had a good year last year, by all accounts, I don’t know what my problem is.

Fortunately for me, I have sources to other apples. My dad gave me a crate of them. I decided that this year, I needed to make some apple sauce since last year I turned it all into cider. So, that is what I set out to do.

Ideally, I would do this work in an evening. That way I have my weekends for things that require larger blocks of time. To me, even a late night canning is better than a whole afternoon or morning on Saturday. But, I couldn’t quite work out the timing of getting dinner completed and having enough time to can. I remind you that I start work early so I go to bed early. I would have stayed up late to complete, but starting late is really a no go.

The most important thing is getting everything gathered up unless you want to spend all day doing it. The first thing I do when I start is getting the canner going because it takes a lot of time to get the water to boil. So, I start the canner then I start doing everything else.

These are pretty natural apples, so I spend prep time cutting around worms, rot and scab. The apple parts are scalded for several minutes and then I put them through the juicer (as it is called). The juicer separates the flesh of the apple from the skin of the apple. Had I not spent a bunch of time trimming out the bad parts, it would also remove the seeds and other undesirable parts.

I add a little sugar and sometimes water depending on the consistency of the sauce. Then I start filling the jars. Once I have enough jars to fill the canner and the water is boiling, I just boil the jars for 20 minutes and done. If everything is in sync, then you should have the next batch to add to the canner when the first one is done.

My yield was 12 quarts. One jar broke, so I actually got 11 quarts. A bit on that, I am not very careful with my jars. The training says to temper your jars by first putting them in the dishwasher. What this does is heat up the glass so that when it cools, the crystal structure is in alignment, and therefore stronger. If I do that, then I am adding more time to the process plus it is really hard to find an empty dishwasher. So, this would mean washing what is in there, then my canning jars before I use them. I just chance the breakage instead. The good news is that my break was just a split in the jar, so we will just eat that one.

End Your Programming Routine: My canning waxes and wanes. I think 12 quarts is plenty for this year. The primary consumer of applesauce is my son in Taiwan this year. I think that when he moves on, I would probably can pints, not quarts in the future. But, you do you. If I happen to any more apples, it will go into cider.