Canning Question about canning tomato juice.

[Martinhouse]

I have a lot of juice from the grocery store in the big 48 oz. cans. I plan to take it out of those cans and pressure can it in pint jars. My qu estion is.....do I really have to bring the juice to a boil first in a big pot, or can I just pour it into the jars and maybe process it for a few extra minutes? The cans of juice will be at room temperature when I do this and the jars are totally clean.

 

[PJM]

I have a lot of juice from the grocery store in the big 48 oz. cans. I plan to take it out of those cans and pressure can it in pint jars. My qu estion is.....do I really have to bring the juice to a boil first in a big pot, or can I just pour it into the jars and maybe process it for a few extra minutes? The cans of juice will be at room temperature when I do this and the jars are totally clean.

You should be able to cold pack the jars. Use the same temperature water in the canner as the juice is. Start timing after venting for 7 minutes (those are the instructions on my canner). Or you could water bath the jars also, as tomatoes are high acid.

 

[Martinhouse]

Thanks, PJM. I prefer pressure canning, but I didn't think about making sure the water in the canner matched the temp of the juice in the jars. It does make sense. That will be easy to accomplish by filling a separate pot with tap water the night before. That will get it up to the same room temp as those cans of juice.

By canning this way, I can fill several canner batches of jars ahead of time, making sure not so long that the juice could spoil.