Canning Tomato Juice

Start with 60 pounds of tomatoes -- ripe, tasty tomatoes.
And in 2 hours  you can have two dozen jars of great juice.  All the better to create tasty bases for   soups, and sauces.

September brings bushels of great ripe tomatoes.  Bass Farms stores their freshly picked tomatoes in a large cooler with constantly circulating air.  But once you pick up your tomatoes be ready to process your produce.

Many don't realize that when "shipped in" tomatoes arrive at stores they really aren't ripe - - they are "gassed" to produce a bright red color but are not yet ripe (Check out  what Terry Dunkel has to say about gassed tomatoes).  So when you take those tomatoes home they can sit awhile -- in fact they often have to as they are not ripe (just red in the store).  Freshly picked tomatoes are another story -- foods grown without preservatives need care in storage and in their use.  They are best when red and ripe.

For more about canning see www.bassfarms.org/harvesttable/tomatoes.html