Bottled Apples

My good friend Rick dropped by with a bag of apples from his tree; they were a bit too sour for me, so I boiled one for breakfast and decided to bottle most of the remainder.

I diced them into large chunks - quarters really - and put them on a low heat, took about 30 minutes to come to boiling-point.

I used the potato-masher to pulp them in the pan.

They look pretty good, pink skins and all!

I thought three screw-top pickle jars should do the trick.

I use an old beckers milk jug as a large funnel and plop the pulp right in there.

Like me, you may need chopsticks to push the chunky bits through!

Here we are! The pan is rinsed out, three jars sit in about one inch of hot tap water.

Back onto the stove.

I had a bit left over; I’ll use that in my porridge tomorrow morning as a treat!

At one o’clock I put the pan on to boil.

After two hours I turn off the heat.

I carry the pan, lid and jars intact to the balcony, and carefully remove the jars, placing them on the balcony floor to cool.

They air-cool rapidly as the excess wtare on the outside takes with it the latent heat of evaporation.

I hear a satisfying “ping!” as each lid pops inwards towards the partial vacumn, indicating a perfect seal!

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