How to Can Applesauce and Pass Down a Family Tradition

Hi, this is Sheri from the blog ourlifehomeschooling.com, where I share homeschooling encouragement for everyday moms. If you're new to my blog or YouTube channel, my name is Sheri, and I am married to my high school sweetheart, Nelson. We have nine incredible kids, and I love talking about homeschooling and encouraging other homeschooling parents. One of the things that I love about homeschooling is how it's so much a part of our life. It's not just academic work, although we spend a lot of time focusing on that, but our whole lifestyle is just a lifestyle of learning. So a lot of life meshes in with our schoolwork. And sometimes the things that we're doing here at home are just very much hands-on and opportunities for them to learn in other ways than just the academic side of learning. As homeschoolers, we tend to think in terms of planning out our curriculum and what kind of, what are we gonna use for math this year? What am I going to be teaching them this year in spelling? But have you ever stopped to think about some of the family traditions or some of the life skills that are important to you and to your family to pass on to the next generation? One of the life skills or family traditions that we really value is preserving food and canning, specifically applesauce. We do different kinds of preserving, but one I wanna share specifically with you today is our annual applesauce canning day. This is a pretty big event. The whole family is involved. It really is very much a family tradition. It's something we have done for many, many years. So today I'm gonna take you along on the process. I've taken a lot of footage just showing step-by-step how we go through our applesauce canning. So I'm just going to show you the process of this family tradition that we have enjoyed passing down to our kids. When we can applesauce, everyone is involved. I count this as a day of school. We're all working together. And in that way, it's been just really great family memories. It's a day where the whole family is involved. There are parts that some kids cannot do, but there are really always jobs that need to be done and someone that is able to fill in for those spots. On the blog, I give a little bit more specific instructions about the step-by-step process of our applesauce canning family tradition. I also have links to some of the tools that we use if you would like to know where you can find some of those things. My husband's family has passed down the tradition of canning applesauce for many years. And so when I got married, this was something that I kind of married into. And the very first year we were married, we went to my in-law's house and we just became part of their applesauce canning. And we did a little bit for ourselves, but we were part of what they were doing. For many years, we were at their home and just whatever siblings were around were kind of corralled into helping us. And as I said before, it's something that the whole family is involved in. As our family has grown and as we've had more children, the applesauce canning has moved to our house and now my husband's parents come and help us. And now instead of his siblings being involved, now our kids are involved and we are passing along this tradition to the next generation. This year we did 10 bushels of apples, seven for ourselves and three for my in-laws. This comes out to about, I think this year we had 144 quarts with seven bushels of apples. We use Rambo apples, which is an heirloom traditional apple. They're pretty tart. So if you want to use something that's sweeter, we don't add sugar to our Rambo apples. But if you want a sweeter taste that you don't have to add sugar in, you can find a sweeter apple to use. We've just always used Rambo apples and it's what our family likes. The first step in canning applesauce is to prepare the kitchen. And for us, as I said, the kids are involved in everything. We start the night before and we bring up jars from our pantry, which is in the basement. We just have a room down there where we keep a lot of our deep freezers and our canned goods. So the kids bring up all the jars. They have been washed, but they really need to be rinsed and sterilized again because maybe they've gotten dusty or whatever down in the basement. So each of the kids helps bring up jars. And when you have a lot of people helping, many hands make light work. So they're all involved in helping us. And that starts the night before. The morning of, we have to get the kitchen clean. So after breakfast, everybody is involved in helping us clean the kitchen. And specifically, it's important to clear the counters because you need a lot of space when you are making applesauce. In the past, when we've worked in a smaller kitchen, we even set up an extra table just because we needed more counter space. Another thing that I do and my mother-in-law does to the stovetop is to take off some of the iron grates and put foil over our gas burners. And I cut out a little circle for each of the burners. And by covering it with foil, it's just making the cleanup just a lot easier because the applesauce, when it's boiling, it spills over the side, it drips, and it can really make a mess that you have to clean up at the end of your day. And so if you put the foil down, it really helps to, then at the end of the day, you can just take the foil off. There may be just a little bit that seeped underneath, but it's not gonna be that bad. So this is an important step. If you wanna make your cleanup a little bit easier. When you're preparing the kitchen, you kind of have stations in applesauce. So we wash the sink out really well. I scrub it with stainless steel just to make sure it's really clean because we dump our apples in the sink and fill the sink up to wash them. So you're gonna have basically a washing station. You're going to have a cutting area. So for us, that's usually the dining room table where we have big bowls. We fill them with the clean apples and we're cutting. So you're gonna have a cutting area. The cooking area, which is obviously the stovetop, you're gonna have the saucing area, and the saucing area is going to be near where you're filling up the jar. So that has to be kind of a big spot where you can run your cooked applesauce through the saucer, and then you can take that pure applesauce and pour it into your applesauce jars. And then finally, you need a canning area. You can do this on the stovetop, the same stovetop where you're cooking the apples. Because our production is kind of big, we have set up camp stoves out on the deck and we've put our canners out there. So we have plenty of stovetop space for all the kettles we need, cooking apples, and the ones that were being used to can the applesauce. The second step is to wash and cut the apples. So like I said, we dump all the apples into the sink, fill them up. This is a great job that kids can do, have someone dump the apples in the sink for them. They can help with washing them and putting them into the bowls that are getting ready to be taken over to be cut. So after the apples are washed and they are being cut, we usually have a big bowl. And in the past for many years, like 20 years, we have used a paring knife to cut them in halves and then in quarters, and then to just take the core out. Not a huge chunk of the core, but just a little bit of the core. Now the seeds from the core and the stems and the peels will come out in the saucer, but they can kind of clog up your saucer. So we like to take the cores out and it just makes them cook faster and run through the saucer better without the core. So we do core them. We have cut them in halves and quarters for many years. For the very first time this year, we tried something new and I'll show you some video footage of it. We tried a French fry cutter. We put each of the apples through a French fry cutter and it's so fast. And then at the end, we would just kind of fish through the cut up apple and find the core and pull the cores out. This ended up being a huge time saver for us, not only in cutting the apples, but also in cooking the apples because they're in such smaller sizes. So it took so much less cook time. So in the future, we are probably going to continue using this French fry cutter because it saved us so much time. But if you don't have something like that, a paring knife and cutting them in quarters works just as well. And it's, like I said, what we've been doing for over 20 years. Step three is to cook the apples. So usually my mother-in-law is the one who loves working the stove. She is always over there cooking the apples on the stove. That's kind of her station. And we found that different people kind of like certain spots. So maybe that will happen for you and your family. You wanna cook the apples until they are soft and mushy. And one thing that you kind of have to experiment with with your first kettle of apples is you want to add water to it. And we add typically between four and six cups of water, but you're gonna need to experiment with this because it depends, first of all, on how big the size of your kettle is. And secondly, it depends how ripe your apples are. You really just have to experiment. And if your sauce, when you put it through the saucer, is too runny, you don't want to add as much water to your next kettle. And if it's too thick, then obviously you need a little bit more water. You wanna cook the apples until they are just soft and mushy and really kind of soupy. We put lids on our kettles and then you want to stir them every few minutes because they will stick to the bottom. And if they stick to the bottom, it really is a mess and it can get a burnt taste in your applesauce. So make sure you are regularly stirring that applesauce and it can kind of pop. The applesauce can pop as it's boiling. So we have a real long metal spoon and I use, or my mother-in-law uses oven mitts that she'll put on because it'll pop and it can, you know, burn your arms just from that boiling applesauce. So just a tip to help save in that way. The fourth part and another part that the kids can help with is running through the saucer. And this is the part that all of my kids love and believe it or not, they fight over who gets to do the saucer. Until they're old enough that they get tired of it. But usually everyone wants a turn to run the applesauce through the saucer. So after your apples are done on the stovetop, you carry them over to the area where you are going to be running them through the saucer. For many, many years, we used a kitchen aid with a saucer attachment on the top. And this worked great. We used it for many years. One year we had a kitchen aid that was just worked too hard and kind of gave out on us in the middle of our applesauce day. And I hardly even remember how we saved the day, but we figured something out and we were able to finish our day. After that, we decided to invest in a commercial saucer. And this is great for us because we always can a large amount of applesauce. And this commercial saucer has been great for us. But if you don't have something like that, a kitchen aid with a saucer attachment will work just fine. When you pour your apples through the saucer, there's a small round little chute that is going to shoot out your seeds, any part that's left of your core or the skin. And so that comes down as your waste. So you're gonna need a bowl to catch that. And then down the front, the chute, your applesauce is going to come out. And you'll need a shallow bowl to catch that. The fifth step is to fill your jars with applesauce. Once you have that big bowl of applesauce that's gone through your saucer, and it's nice and clear, you are going to want to fill your jars with that. If you like adding sugar to your applesauce, this would be the step where you would add sugar. We don't add sugar to our applesauce. So it just goes right from that bowl into the jars. We have a funnel that we put into our jars, and this really just helps with the mess. You wanna fill your jars to about a half inch at the top, leaving a little bit of half inch head space. Step number six is prepare your lids and rings. So you wanna just make sure your rings are clean. And then your lids need to be sterilized for one minute in boiling water. So we just have a pan on the stove where the applesauce is cooking, a small pan, where we boil our lids, and that needs to be boiled for at least a minute to sterilize them. Then you're gonna put your hot, sterilized lids on your jars, and screw them with the ring. It's very important that you don't screw them too loosely or too tight. If you don't screw them tight enough, they will maybe not seal, they might not seal. If you screw them too tight, the lids can buckle. Step number seven. Once you have your applesauce quart jars or half gallon jars, we do a lot of half gallon jars, and some quart jars. Once you have your jars with your lids and your rings on them, they are ready to go in the canner. So you want to have your canner full of water. It does not need to be boiling. It should just be pretty warm or pretty hot, ready for your applesauce jars to go in. We use a jar lifter. I have the links to a lot of these tools on the blog if you'd like to see them. And the blog post will be linked below this video. We use a jar lifter to put them in the canner. And then quarts need to be processed for 15 minutes, and half gallons for 20 minutes. Step number eight. Once your jars are finished processing, then you're going to use your jar lifter and pull them out of the canner. You want to make sure you have a dry towel to put them on, on the countertop or on the tabletop, whatever you're going to use. You want a dry towel. Put your processed jars on the dry towel and let them set for 24 hours to give them time to vacuum seal. And that really sums up the process of making applesauce. So if you are looking for a family tradition that you would like to start in your family, this is one that has been a yearly thing that we look forward to. And something that's been very special to us, what do you want to pass down to your kids? Consider not just the curriculum, the academic work that you want to teach them, but what you want to leave, what tools you want to give them for living life. If you enjoyed this video, would you please like and subscribe? When you like a video, it shows YouTube what kind of content that you like seeing. 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