If you're prepared to risk it Apple Chutney from any high acid British recipe does not need any kind of processing. I know this is heretical on here but I have chutney on my shelves from October 2010 which we will be eating for the next couple of years quite happily. The flavour improves with keeping. 2 months would be a minimum. But it must be a traditional high vinegar recipe designed to be kept in this way. Here's mine: 5lb apples 1pt vinegar 1lb soft brown sugar 1 tbsp salt 1 tbsp ground ginger 8oz onions 8oz sultanas 8os stoned chopped dates Chop the whole lot up roughly. (Not in a food processor) Bring to the boil and simmer for about 1 1/4 hours stirring occasionally to stop it catching. It should be dark brown and thick with no liquid left from the apples. I then pot it into hot jars and cover with a vinegar proof lid. That's all. But obviously I can't recommend that on here.

Melly, water and juices raise pH level; evaporating those out lowers it. Hence, tomato paste, while more dense, is more acid than tomato sauce. A lot of people make applesauce with no added sugar or minimal added sugar, so the pH, while well within the range for BWB processing, is essentially the pH of whatever apple you're using (variety, ripeness, etc.) Apple butter is really close to a preserve or jam. It has much more sugar than applesauce and the sugar is a natural dessicant. So between the long-cooking (evaporation) and the sugar, you're either cooking off or trapping the water which provides a congenial harbor for botulism spores. As it's cooked down, acidity increases. Not to mention some apple butter recipes call for vinegar, which also raises acidity (and as Ken pointed out, lowers pH). Carol

Well then, that must have been my problem because I did double the recipe!! I didn't realize you couldn't! I know you're not supposed to fool around with amounts in recipes so you keep the acid ratio correct, but where this was just strawberries and sugar and nothing else in the recipe I figured it was ok! I guess not! And I measured out 4 quarts of whole strawberries. The recipe was 2 quarts of strawberries and 6 cups of sugar. It didn't say to cut them or mash them before measuring - in fact (I'm remembering off the top of my head here as I don't have the book with me) it said to crush the strawberries one layer at a time and then to mix with the sugar, so it sounded to me like you measured the whole strawberries, then crushed them and that's what I did. I'm not going to fuss with what I already made - as I said, it won't go to waste as hubby will use it as pancake topping - we've even been known to plop a spoonful of jam in a bowl of oatmeal, so this stuff will work for that as well. But I'm glad I spoke up because for future adventures in jam, I wouldn't have known any of this and would probably have given up on it if I kept failing! And I thought it was weird that the jam recipe that used the pectin used an extra cup of sugar from the one without pectin. I've learned so much from just this thread - thanks so much guys! I want to take my next adventure into the realm of peaches! Peach jam sounds yummy and if I fail again, hubby does like peaches, so he'll have more pancake topping than he knows what to do with lol!! Lisa

I just did 14 half pints of that jam Saturday night. About 9 p.m. the jam was simmering away and the power went off, some drunk hit a power pole and I lost my lights. My stove is gas, though, so I finished up by lantern light! The jam was just as good as always, I used half Ida Reds and half local Ginger Gold apples and doubled the batch. It "jells" really well, even without the peels. I hate commercial pectin and it hates me, it's too inconsistent for me, so I love these recipes that don't need it. In addition, if you don't need pectin you can cut the sugar down and I did cut it down to about half because Dad shouldn't have all that sugar. Well, he shouldn't eat the jam at all, but he does, so he gets at least half the sugar! Be sure to taste to make sure it's sweet enough for you if you do that. The Ida Reds cooked down so much they could have been apple butter, but the Ginger Golds stayed firmer, thankfully. This is one of my favorite jam recipes, I make a couple of batches every year. Michael, I'm glad you enjoyed it! Annie