Canning Blueberry Pie Filling
Introduction: Canning Blueberry Pie Filling
Welcome to making Pie Filling! While in this tutorial I'll be showing you how to make Blueberry Pie Filling, this same method is used to make various types of pie filling like Apple, Blackberry, Peach, and more. This is one of the easiest things to prepare for your food storage, plus you can use it for other things like tarts, dump cake, cobblers, and any other recipe that requies a filling like this.
Supplies
1. Water bath canner (with lid and wire rack)
2. Canning jar lids (appropriate size for jars being used)
3. Canning Jars (I used 8 quart jars - each jar holds one full pie filling. You may want to can this in smaller jars if you like.)
4. Fresh picked fruit (6 quarts or 24 cups of blueberries in this case.)
5. Paper towels
6. 8 - 1 Quart glass canning jars (7 for canning, one for extra filling)
7. Canning "tool set" - including tongs, jar grip, funnel, etc
8. Measuring cups - for liquids and for powders / sugars
9. Recipe - link here (Click the word "here" to get the Oregon State University pdf file I used.)
10. Towel
11. 69
Two pots - one for canning jar lids to strelize in and one stock pot for mixing the pie filling in.
Step 1: Canning Blueberry Pie Filling - the Video
This is the full video of the process below.
Step 2: Gather Supplies
In this process, having everything right on hand pre-measured, makes the process go so much easier. So I have given the items that I have used in this instructable in picture form with the measuring items I have have available to me, yours might be slightly different.
Once your supplies have been put all in the same location, start measuring your ingredients. For the Blueberry Pie Filling that I made, that would make 7 Quarts shelf stable Pie Filling, I used the following:
Ingredients:
*6 Quarts (24 cups) Fresh picked blueberries
* 6 Cups Granulated Sugar (make sure there are no clumps)
* 9 1/3 cups cold water (or juice)
* 2 1/4 Cup Clear Jel (This is NOT clear Jello - it is a refined cornstarch - not found in everyone's local grocery store. You may need to look to a community like the Amish or Menite who have a store near you, or look on Amazon for this product. The product I boiught was Hoosier Hill Farm Clear Jel, 1.5 Lbs.) ** This is an affiliate link, while you will not be obligated to buy, if you do click and/or purchase, I do get some credit from this link.)
* 1/2 Cup Lemon Juice
** You can also include Food Coloring if you want but I did not use it. The link to the full recipe, and other pie fillings is here.
Full Pie Filling Recipe link.
Step 3: My Outdoor Kitchen
I've set up a "cooking station" outside to help keep heat from loitering in my house. So, I'm using a double burner propane stove to have my water bath canner on one burner while I use the other burner for both cooking the pie filling and sterilizing the two part lids for the jars.You will see in several pictures that I also have a table with the rest of my tools on it. I got a folding table at Wal-Mart for about $40, but you can also get a 4x8 folding table from Costco for about $50, both are good, I just lucked out with the one at Wal-Mart.
Step 4: Pick Then Rinse the Blueberries.
I went to a local farm called Blueberry Meadows and picked a total of 18 pounds of blueberries between two pickings. The second picking of 10 pounds of berries is what I used here. After picking through the berries dry, I rinsed them in water to get the stuff that I couldn't pick out dry. The last two images are the things that I tossed out - the stems, leaves and rotten berries.
Step 5: Boiling Water and Start the Pie Filling
Start one burner with the canner boiling water with jars upside down to keep sanitary. Then in the second pot, combine the sugar and Clear Jel and mix throughly. Remember that when measuring dry ingredients, not to just scoop the product out in the measuring cup - you need to level the measuring cup as indicated in the last picture, so you don't get too much in this case of the Clear Jel. 491