Runny tomato sauce issue (canning)

juno

For those of us with runny sauces, can you share which tomato varieties you've tried?  I was canning brandywines and cherokee purples this year, but I've started to think that maybe I had such poor results because I wasn't using a paste tomato.  Has anyone had runny results using a paste tomato (e.g. Amish Paste)?  What about plum tomatoes?  I'm not even sure what plum tomatoes are or how they are different from paste, I've just heard of them.

Lady*Timot

How bad is it that I don't know...haha.

Mine was also runny.  I know that I had some san marzanos (?) because many of thoe tomatoes came from my CSA.  That said I also picked up a bunch from a grower and they were just getting rid of them for the season so I got like two or three bushels for like $10.00.  I know there were some big boys in there but also a mixed blend as well as some from my own garden.

When I opened my sauce a few weeks ago I just added a can of tomato paste (from the store) from the store and it was pretty spot on.

Sorry I don't know if this helps you or not.  This is the recipe I used.  She talks about the different kinds of tomatoes...

 http://pickyourown.org/spaghettisauce.htm

juno

Lady*Timot:

How bad is it that I don't know...haha.

Mine was also runny.  I know that I had some san marzanos (?) because many of thoe tomatoes came from my CSA.  That said I also picked up a bunch from a grower and they were just getting rid of them for the season so I got like two or three bushels for like $10.00.  I know there were some big boys in there but also a mixed blend as well as some from my own garden.

When I opened my sauce a few weeks ago I just added a can of tomato paste (from the store) from the store and it was pretty spot on.

Sorry I don't know if this helps you or not.  This is the recipe I used.  She talks about the different kinds of tomatoes...

 http://pickyourown.org/spaghettisauce.htm

That's actually pretty helpful.  The link talks about squeezing your tomatoes first, which I didn't do.  It seems pretty wasteful though, since we wouldn't drink the juice; I'd be growing or paying for a lot of wasted tomato.  It also mentions romas (paste) having less water, so they cook down faster.  That gives me a couple of tips for next time: Find or grow paste tomatoes and, failing that, squeeze out my regulars before I cook them.

CDMay2006

I haven't canned, so this might not be relevant, but when making sauce from scratch it sometimes is more watery, in which case we give it a bit (lot) longer to simmer down.

mrsbooboo

I ended up with a very thick sauce. I used Yakima tomatoes, which are somewhat pasty.

However, I peeld them, then cut in half and got rid of the watery part with seeds. Then I ran (pulsed it) through a food processor.

I also made salsa and got rid of the watery part. Salsa turned out to be chunky and delicious. Week after that, got lazy and just chopped up whole tomatoes and it turned out pretty runny.

I used the recipe from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

SuperGreen

We used 'Celebrity' tomatoes which are a standard slicing type.  They're the most plentiful and therefore cheapest at our Farmer's Market.  Our tomato sauce was watery.  We did core them and run them through a food mill, which gets rid of the seeds, pulp, and a lot of liquid.  We also cooked the sauce way down before we canned it, and it was still watery.  After we made spaghetti with the first watery batch, we started making more of a veggie sauce out of it.  We cut up an onion, saute that until soft, add 2 cloves chopped garlic, then the tomato sauce and a whole lot of oregano and thyme.  We simmer that for ~30 mins, and it's finally the right consistency for spaghetti.  Takes a little more work yes, but it tastes great and there's no junk in it like commercial sauce.