Contents
I love canning apples. What I love more than canning free apples is paying nothing for the apples. Our local orchard had a family day where kids under the age of 12 could pick a 1/2 peck of apples for free. They also had hay rides, music, face coloring and free apple cider samples (YUM!). We had so much fun. During our visit there I noticed there was a bunch of apples on the ground and asked them if we were allowed to pick the apples that had fallen on the ground since I wanted to make applesauce. They said yes and then said it would not cost us a thing. Yay! So my wonderful parents along with my two year old niece spent two days picking apples. Thank you 🙂 I am going to remember this for next year.
Picking Free Apples to Make Applesauce
I am not sure how many bushels of apples they picked, but it was a lot of apples which took us days to can. We started the canning process by washing the apples. After washing them we cored the apples. We took out any bruised areas. We cut them by hand and used a Pampered Chef apple corer. This was a fun tool to use. We used mostly red delicious with a few yellow delicious.
Canning Free Apples
After coring the apples we put them in a big pot with a thick bottom. If you use a pot with a thin bottom the apples will burn. Believe me we learned this the hard way, in the past. You put a lot of hard work in canning so you do not want it to burn. We added water with lemon juice (not too much. We used less than a 1/4 a cup of lemon juice to a big pot) so they would get soft, but not burn. The apples do make their own juice so don’t add to much water. We added water then checked it and at times we added a little more water. We would occasionally stir the apples to make sure the apples on the top would also get cooked.
Once the apples were cooked we put them through a food mill which was attached to our kitchenaid standup mixer. We have used a manual food mill and that does work, but we love the kitchenaid attachment.
Canning Free Apples
After we processed all the apples in the pot we put it on the stove and cooked it until it was boiling. You want to make sure you occasionally stir the applesauce so it doesn’t burn. We kept the heat on low to medium heat. We also added cinnamon to the applesauce. We just added enough to our liking. We added a little at a time because you cant take it out if you put too much in. We also made one batch of plain. In the past, we have added strawberries to the applesauce.
After the mixture boiled. We placed the applesauce in jars (pints and quartz). We then went down the sides to get air bubbles out and went around the edges of the jar with a wet paper towel to make sure there would be nothing in the way to stop the jar from sealing. We then placed the lids and bands on them. We boiled the applesauce in a water bath for 20 minutes. After the twenty minutes we turned off the heat and let them sit for a few minutes then placed them on the table to cool off. Afterwards we took the bands off the jars and washed the them. I also labeled each jar lid with the year and then put them away. We split the jars between my mom, sister and I. I ended up with 49 jars (11 qts and 38 pints).
This is a great activity for kids to do. Just make sure they are age appropriate since at times you are working with hot apples and hot water. I hope this year we can also can free apples.
Want to start canning?
Canning may seem like a lot at work at times, but seeing the jars on the shelf is worth it especially when you can using free products. To prepare food for your family and passing that knowledge down can be a fun and rewarding experience. You will only need a few things to be apple to start canning. Listed below are things to start you out canning.
Shop this Post
Canning kit
Pressure canner
Waterbath pot
Canning jars
Ball Canning Book