Author: craig

How to Pressure Can Black Beans: A Step-by-Step Guide

Posted on by craig

Now that things are really calming down around here—the fall harvest has nearly all been processed, the holiday season is fully over, and we’re now in that lull between mid-winter and the warming of spring—I’m getting to the task of pressure canning black beans.

We’ve been experimenting with growing beans the last few years. We’ve had kidney beans, black beans, and scarlet runner beans. These are all the kind where you let them dry in the pod, shell them, and let them dry more—we don’t grow the fully-edible kind like green beans.

While our beans are fully dry and in jars in our food storage room and, in a sense, were already processed and preserved, they weren’t exactly dinner-friendly. Working with dried beans takes planning ahead as you need an overnight soak to rehydrate them. While you can do a quick soak in a much shorter time, it still requires a considerable time investment, and the quick soak method doesn’t produce quite as nice results as the overnight soak.

Soaked and rinsed black beans, waiting to be pressure canned

Besides, what I really want are jars of fully cooked beans that I can just pop open and dump in dinner at a moment’s notice. Indeed, shortly after canning a batch of beans, we felt we needed to add protein to a potato soup and added a jar of beans about ten minutes before serving.

If you’re not a gardener but you like food projects, you can buy dried beans from the store at very cheap prices and do up these pressure canned jars. That allows you to control the salt level or even do a mix of your favourite kinds of beans in one jar.

While I pressure canned black beans, this process and recipe works for any dried bean.

Preparing the beans

Before doing anything, carefully sort through the beans to ensure there are no stones, pebbles, or clumps of dirt hiding in there. This can be fairly common, especially with smaller beans.

The first step is to rehydrate the beans, either with an overnight soak or the quick soak method.

I much prefer an overnight soak. While it takes some planning since you have to start the day before, it’s very much a “set it up and leave it” soak, which I like. The overnight soak can also reduce the amount of skin-splitting on beans, if this is a concern. If you experience digestive upset from beans, the overnight soak can also reduce the likelihood of this happening.

Soaked and rinsed black beans, waiting to be pressure canned

Overnight soak

Put the dried beans in a very large pot and add 10 cups of water for every pound of beans. For this full canner load of beans, I did up 3.25 pounds of dried beans, which meant 33 cups of water. I like to give it a little stir to see if anything floats to the top so I can scoop it off (since home processing of beans sometimes means I have some dried plant detritus mixed in).

The next day, drain the beans, give them a good rinse, and then move ahead to the cooking stage.

Quick-soak method

This also uses a large pot and the same ratio of beans to water. For every pound of beans in your pot, add 10 cups of water. Bring it all to a boil over medium-high heat and let boil for two minutes, then remove from heat and let sit for an hour

Afterward, drain the beans, give them a good rinse, and the move ahead to the cooking stage.

Cook the beans

Put the beans back in your large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and let boil for 30 minutes.

While the beans are boiling, prepare your pressure canner to manufacturer specifications and prepare your jars.

Pressure canning black beans

When beans have cooked for thirty minutes, remove from heat and use a slotted spoon to scoop beans into mason jars. You can use pint or quart, but I like to use half-pint because that’s a more reasonable serving of beans for us. (You can always go with smaller jars for canning, but never larger.)

Leave a headspace of one inch. Don’t discard the water.

Black beans in mason jars, waiting for salt before pressure canning

This is optional, but you can add non-iodized salt to your jars—1/4 tsp per half pint jar, 1/2 tsp per pint jar, or 1 tsp per quart jar.

Then, using a ladle, scoop out the bean water and add to the jars, maintaining the one-inch headspace. If you run out of bean water (as I did), freshly boiled water can be used instead.

Debubble, adjust headspace, wipe jar rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar, and close with two-part lids to fingertip tightness.

Process jars in your pressure canner at 10 psi weighted gauge (or 11 psi for dial gauge) for 75 minutes for pints (or half pints) or 90 minutes for quarts. Adjust for elevation if necessary—for elevations above 1,001 feet use 15 psi weighted gauge; for dial gauge use 11 psi for 1,001-2,000ft, 12 psi for 2,001-4,000ft, 13 pis for 4,001-6,000, 14 psi for 6,001-8000ft, and 15 psi for 8,001-10,000ft.

Once canner has fully cooled and depressurized as per manufacturer directions, carefully remove jars from canner and place on a thick towel on the counter or a table. Leave undisturbed overnight and check them in the morning; sealed jars can be stored at room temperature for a year or so, unsealed jars should be put in the fridge and consumed promptly.

Using canned beans

Use pressure canned canned black beans in the exact same way as you’d use canned black beans from the grocery store.

The week after I canned these black beans, I had made up a batch of potato soup. We felt it needed a bit of protein added, so we dumped in a can of beans, and it was perfect.

Today, I’m planning some crockpot chili, and it calls for a couple cans of black beans, so I’ll be using my home-canned ones.

Pressure canned black beans, ready to be used in dinner

Pressure Canned Black Beans

5 from 2 votes
This beginner-friendly pressure canning recipe turns dried black beans into ready-to-eat black beans that are shelf stable and convenient.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 8 hours
Cook Time 30 minutes
Canning Time 1 hour
Course: Side Dish
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • Black Beans
  • Salt
  • Water

Equipment

  • Pressure Canner
  • Mason Jars, quart size or smaller

Method
 

Soaking Beans
  1. Sort through beans to remove any pebbles, dirt clumps, or plant detritus.
  2. Beans must be soaked, either overnight or via the quick soak method. Use 10 cups of water per pound of beans. A full canner load is 3.25 pounds and would use 33 cups of water.
    Overnight soak
    Place beans and water in a large pot or bowl and let sit overnight. The next day, drain and rinse beans.
    Quick-soak
    Place beans and water in a large pot. Bring water to boil over medium-high heat and let boil for two minutes. Remove from heat and let beans soak for one hour.
Cooking Beans
  1. Put beans in a large pot and cover with fresh water. Heat beans over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Let boil for 30 minutes.
  2. While beans are cooking, prepare pressure canner as per manufacturer directions.
Canning Beans
  1. Using a slotted spoon, fill jars (quarts, pints, or half-pints) with beans to one inch headspace. Reserve bean water.
  2. Optional: Add 1 tsp non-iodized salt to each quart jar, ½ tsp to each pint jar, or ¼ tsp to each half-pint jar.
  3. Top off with bean water, maintaining one inch headspace. If you don't have enough bean water, you can use freshly-boiled water.
  4. Debubble, adjust headspace, wipe jar rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar, and attach two-part lids to fingertip tightness.
  5. Load into pressure canner and heat and pressurize as per manufacturer directions. Process at 10 psi with a weighted gauge or 11 psi with a dial gauge for 90 minutes for quarts and 75 minutes for pints or half-pints. Adjust for elevation if necessary (see note).
  6. When processed, allow canner to cool and depressurize as per manufacturer directions. When safe, carefully remove lid and with a jar lifter remove jars and place them on a thick towel on a counter or table and let sit overnight. In the morning, check that jars have sealed; sealed jars can be kept at room temperature for approximately a year before quality starts to degrade, while unsealed jars should be refrigerated and consumed promptly.

Notes

Adjust for Elevation
Weighted Gauge
0-1,000 ft – 10 psi
1,001 and above – 15 psi
Dial Gauge
0-2,000 ft – 11 psi
2,001-4,000 ft – 12 psi
4,001-6,000 ft – 13 psi
6,001-8,000 ft – 14 psi
8,001-10,000 ft – 15 psi

Garden Update: February 2025

Posted on by craig

As I’m writing this, we are experiencing one of the coldest Februarys that I can remember. Normally at this time of year we’re having some warmer weather—and I remember this because there’s an annual winter festival right now that includes snow sculptures and I always worry about them melting. This year that’s not a concern.

The back yard garden covered in snow.

So it feels odd…that I’m preparing our seed order and am in the early stages of garden planning.

Buying seeds for the garden

When we first started this urban homesteading adventure years ago, we just went to the hardware store and snapped up any seed packets that looked interesting.

Now, though, it’s a careful process.

We receive two seed catalogues in the mail that we order from, I’m eyeing a website I’m going to try ordering from, and after we do all that we still sometimes pick up random packets at the hardware store.

Two seed catalogues.

So what is the point of so many sources?

Two things—selection and price.

The catalogues tend to have much greater selection that what we find in our typical hardware store or greenhouse, so they’re my default go-to. Between the catalogues there are sometimes differences in selection—only one offers popcorn and only one offers black beans. And the prices vary between the two catalogues I use, with one of them usually tending to be cheaper.

This year with the website I’m adding to the mix, that’s again due to selection. They have watermelon seeds designed for our climate—and we find watermelon difficult to grow here.

I’ll put our full garden list at the end of this post.

Planning for a year of food

When taking in the challenge of urban homesteading—the challenge of providing for yourself as much as you can—planning a garden can be quite a daunting task.

Frozen food in a chest freezer.

It involves some guesswork, but it also leaves a lot up to chance beyond your control. For example, do we need six chamomile plants or twelve? We had three last year that have given us a good six months of tea, so theoretically six plants would be what we need. But if it’s a bad year for chamomile flowers or it’s a variety that doesn’t bloom as much, six plants might only give us a small amount for tea.

Hot peppers were like that, but in reverse. The first year we grew hot peppers we maybe had a dozen plants and we got very few peppers. The following year we doubled the number of hot pepper plants, but that was also a very good year for hot peppers, with each plant giving us at least double what comparable plants gave us the previous year. In effect, we’d wanted to double our yield but ended up quadrupling it.

The economy of urban homesteading

Going through all this effort of growing and preserving all our own food is a Herculean task sometimes. The planting, maintaining, harvesting, and processing / preserving is sometimes more than the two of us can manage on our own. It’s also not cheap to buy all the seeds and seedlings we need.

But it’s worth it in the end.

There’s of course the satisfaction of knowing this was something we did ourselves. There’s also the satisfaction of knowing what’s in our food. While we don’t have a mistrust of the food industry and aren’t concerned about deceptive practices, we do like being able to control what goes in what we eat. This means less salt in our pasta sauce, it means higher quality tomatoes in our tomato juice, it means richer tasting beets in our pickled beets, and it means customizing recipes to produce exactly what we want.

But there’s also the savings of it all. While, yes, seeds and seedlings often cost in the range of $400-$600, we easily result in $1,500 in produce value. And that’s using numbers I collected years ago, and doesn’t reflect the skyrocketing prices of fruits and veggies in recent years. It also neglects the final “finished price” of what I make. Twenty jars of pesto might have use up $20 worth of homegrown basil, but twenty jars of pesto could easily cost $100—so the value is actually $100, not the $20 worth of what we grew.

Freshly-harvested vegetables.

But then there’s also the social reward. We’ve formed great connections with both neighbours over the years from using their yards and from simply being outside. We’ve had friends and family come and help us in the garden. And we’ve had a good reason to invite people over—come see our garden and stay for a barbecue.

The full garden list

Seeds we’ve ordered:

  • Beans – black
  • Beans – other
  • Beans – scarlet runner
  • Beets
  • Cabbage
  • Carrots
  • Chickpeas
  • Corn
  • Cucumbers
  • Kale
  • Parsnips
  • Peas – for canning
  • Peas – snap peas for snacking
  • Popcorn
  • Pumpkin – sugar pie
  • Pumpkin – for carving
  • Radish
  • Sunflower
  • Spinach
  • Squash – acorn
  • Squash – butternut
  • Squash – spaghetti
  • Watermelon

The seedlings we’ll buy at the greenhouse (which is subject to availability):

  • Basil
  • Broccoli
  • Brussels Sprouts
  • Catnip
  • Chamomile
  • Cauliflower
  • Leeks
  • Mint
  • Oregano
  • Peppers – bell
  • Peppers – hot
  • Rosemary
  • Thyme
  • Tomatoes

Other things to source:

  • Garlic – we’ll replant some of last year’s harvest
  • Mushroom spawn for a mushroom bed
  • Onions
  • Potatoes – we’ll likely replant some of last year’s harvest
  • Shallots

Permaculture products—plants we already have in our garden that come up year after year:

  • Blueberries
  • Borage
  • Chives
  • Dandelions
  • Dill
  • Goji – we’ve yet to harvest anything
  • Grapes
  • Haskap Berries
  • Horseradish
  • Lilac
  • Mint
  • Mustard
  • Peonies
  • Raspberry
  • Rhubarb
  • Saskatoons
  • Strawberries

Foods we harvest from other people’s yards:

  • Apples
  • Cherries

Even with this extensive list, there’s a lot of chance and random decisions that go into gardening on this scale. Some things may not grow, some seeds and seedlings may not be available, a new seed or seedling may catch our attention, or something wild and edible might show up in our yard (which is how the mustard came about).

It’s a massive task to plan out a year’s worth of gardening, but the reward makes all the effort worth it.

How to Make Delicious Homemade Rhubarb Jelly: A Step-by-Step Guide

Posted on by craig

Rhubarb is one of those plants where if you have it, you have a ton of it.

A pile of rhubarb on a patio table.

We don’t actually grow rhubarb in our yard, but both neighbours have rhubarb plants and neither neighbour wants any of it. Since we hate seeing food go to waste, we harvest as much as we can, wash it, chop it, and freeze it. This year we ended up with a large deep freezer stuffed to the brim with rhubarb because it was our biggest harvest ever.

When you think of rhubarb and how to use it, you’re probably thinking desserts—primarily rhubarb crumble and rhubarb pie. While those are both great, my husband and I aren’t really dessert people and so we never make either of these ourselves. My step-dad loves to make it though, so he’ll go through several bags of rhubarb every summer when he’s here.

But, still, several bags (maybe 10?) out of somewhere around 40 means there’s still a TON of rhubarb left to use up.

Ziplock bags filled with chopped rhubarb.

I’ve been working on ways to use rhubarb that aren’t desserts. I make a super delicious rhubarb wine and my rhubarb ginger gin is something I get requests for year-round. I also make a rhubarb lemonade concentrate, though that recipe needs some tweaking because it’s kind of bland (and that’s why it’s not on this site yet), and I make a rhubarb simple syrup that works great for cocktails (which I hope to have on my blog later this year).

And the final recipe I make is rhubarb jelly. Like desserts, jellies are not something my husband and I eat, so I make this for a family member upon request. It just so happens she requested another batch this past week, so I got to work in the kitchen and whipped up a batch!

Preparing rhubarb juice

This recipe can be made with either fresh or frozen rhubarb. I tend to make it from frozen since I have no time in the height of summer to make jelly when there are a million other more urgent things that need doing.

Once you’ve got your rhubarb, it’s time to make the juice.

Rhubarb in a steam juicer.

This is where I pull out my steam juicer. In fact, I have a whole post about using my steam juicer to make and can rhubarb juice. In that post I had mentioned that since I knew I’d more than likely be using the juice for recipes in the future, I opted to not add the optional sugar I wouldn’t have to have to recalculate how much sugar the recipe calls for. So, for this batch of homemade rhubarb jelly, I popped open a couple pints of pre-canned juice and skipped this whole first step.

However, if you don’t have rhubarb juice on hand—and, really, how many people do?—you have two options for extracting juice from your rhubarb: using a steam juicer or the stove top method.

Using a steam juicer

If you have a steam juicer on hand, this is the method I highly recommend.

Set up the juicer as per manufacturer directions, which usually means filling the bottom pot with water, stacking the pots together, and loading the top pot with your fresh or frozen rhubarb. (If you’re using frozen rhubarb, you don’t even have to thaw it first!)

You’ll likely need around two pounds of rhubarb, though you might want extra on hand in case it takes more rhubarb to get that amount to juice.

Turn on the stove, watch that the bottom pot doesn’t run dry, and let the juicer do its work!

Using the stove top method

This requires a bit more active work, but it doesn’t require expensive equipment like a steam juicer.

Boil two pounds of rhubarb in four cups of water until the rhubarb just completely falls apart. Then, with a jelly bag or cheesecloth-lined strainer suspended over a large bowl, strain the rhubarb. Let it sit in the jelly bag or strainer for a couple hours to allow the juice to fully drain from the rhubarb. You should end up with about four cups of juice.

If you’re short on juice, you’ll want to run another smaller batch through this process to obtain the juice. You may want to actually do a little more than the recipe calls for just to ensure you have enough juice.

Making homemade rhubarb jelly

Once you have the juice on hand, the process of making the jelly is really quite simple.

You will need a large pot. You’ll want one larger than you think, because in the later steps, it will likely bubble up quite a bit and if you use a small pot it may boil over.

Pour the four cups of rhubarb juice into the pot and bring it to a boil, then let it boil for a minute.

Then add a packet of powdered pectin and whisk it in, bringing the mixture back to a boil, letting it boil for a minute.

Finally, add six cups of sugar and again whisk and bring back to a boil, letting it boil for a minute. This is the stage where it can get really bubbly and could bubble over if you’re using a too-small pot.

Once the final minute is up, remove the pot from heat. If there’s a film on top of the jelly, you can skim it off. It doesn’t hurt anything if it’s there, it just might not look as nice in the final product.

Carefully ladle hot jelly into pre-warmed jars. To pre-warm a jar, I usually run it under hot tap water. You’ll want to fill them to a quarter-inch headspace. It can get pretty messy; a canning funnel can make the process easier and cleaner.

Once the jars are filled, wipe the rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar. This step is to clean the rim of the jar so it can seal properly. I find that when making jelly, it can be quite easy for there to be jelly on the jar rim, preventing a seal from forming, so this stage is more important here than it might be in other canning recipes.

Attach two-part lids to fingertip tightness and then load into your water bath canner. Ensure the water level is high enough that the jars are submerged by at least an inch of water. Turn on the heat, bring it to a boil, and once it’s boiling let it process for ten minutes.

Afterward, turn off the heat and let it sit for five minutes. Then carefully remove the jars from the canner and place them on a thick towel on a counter or table and let sit overnight. In the morning, check that jars have sealed. If so, they can sit at room temperature on a shelf for at least a year, after which time quality may degrade, but safety will not (as long as the jar remains sealed). Unsealed jars should be refrigerated and consumed promptly.

A jar of rhubarb jelly.

Using rhubarb jelly

While there is, of course, the obvious use of homemade rhubarb jelly—slathering it on toast for breakfast—there are other creative uses as well. You could top a baked brie with rhubarb jelly, or slather it on a ham before baking.

Rhubarb Jelly

5 from 1 vote
Sweet and with a burst of summer freshness, rhubarb jelly is both easy and delicious.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 2 hours
Cook Time 10 minutes
Canning Time 10 minutes
Course: Breakfast
Ingredients Equipment Method

Ingredients
  

Rhubarb Juice
  • 2 lbs Rhubarb, Cleaned and Chopped
  • Water
Rhubarb Jelly
  • 4 cups Rhubarb Juice
  • 6 cups White Sugar
  • 1 box Powdered Pectin

Equipment

  • Water Bath Canner
  • 6-8 Half-Pint (One-Cup) Mason Jars

Method
 

How to make juice with a steam juicer
  1. Set up steam juicer as per manufacturer directions, which usually means water in the bottom pot and rhubarb in the top pot. Boil until the steam releases the juice. Make sure the bottom pot doesn't run dry.
How to make juice on the stove top
  1. Boil two pounds of rhubarb in four cups of water until the rhubarb completely falls apart.
  2. With a jelly bag or cheesecloth-lined strainer suspended over a large bowl, strain the rhubarb. Let it sit in the jelly bag or strainer for a couple hours to allow the juice to fully drain from the rhubarb.
How to make and can rhubarb jelly
  1. Pour rhubarb juice into a large pot and bring to a boil.
  2. Add the pectin, return to a boil, and boil for one minute.
  3. Add the sugar, stir to dissolve, return to a boil, and boil for one minute.
  4. Remove jelly from heat and immediately ladle into jars, leaving a ¼ inch headspace.
  5. Wipe jar rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar and attach two-part lids to fingertip tightness.
  6. Put in water bath canner and cover with hot water until jars are submerged by at least an inch of water. Process in canner for 10 minutes, starting the timer when the canner reaches a full boil.

Garden Update: January 2025

Posted on by craig

As I write the first draft of this post, the temperature outside is somewhere around -32 degrees Celsius (-26 F) and there’s a strong wind that makes the “feels like” temperature a whopping -42 C (-44 F). We usually have a week or two like this in mid January, so it’s entirely expected, though not entirely welcome.

Despite the brutal cold, there are still a handful of garden things going on—a bit of final preservation of our 2024 haul and some early prep for the 2025 season.

The last of the preservation

The veggies that do well in cold storage in my mom’s basement closet are at the point where they will start to go bad soon if we don’t do things with them. These include squash, which will rot, and potatoes, onions, and garlic, which will all start sprouting. It seems these things tend to happen all at once, right when things start to get a little bit warm outside, usually in early February. My guess is there’s a subtle change in ambient temperature and humidity, even though these things are inside the house, and the veggies (and mould) pick up on it and start to work.

With the onions, I’d had hopes of making jars of French onion soup, balsamic onion jam, and pickled onions, but I’m not sure if I have the time and energy for all of that, so for the time being, I’m just working on chopping and freezing them so we can throw them in dinners and things. I do, however, have a LOT of onions to go through, so I might still get to these things.

For the garlic, I’d like to do up several jars of pickled garlic, as that’s often a crowd-pleaser at summer barbecues. Pickled garlic is delicious and for those who aren’t super fans of garlic, it might help to know that the potent bite of garlic greatly recedes, leaving just the flavour of garlic behind.

For the potatoes, we tend to boil and mash them (with just a little bit of butter), and then freeze the mashed potatoes. They aren’t the greatest when reconstituted for dinner, but they’re not terrible. They just need a LOT of butter and milk, and all that dairy and fat makes them appetizing again.

And for the squash, the only thing we can really do is peel, chop, and freeze them. It is possible to can winter squash, but with our ample freezer space and given the fact that canned squash has to be peeled and chopped first, I prefer to just freeze it. Frozen squash works well for soups and making pumpkin pie (which can be made with squash other than pumpkin). Frozen chopped squash is also great for throwing into a roast or onto a sheet pan with other veggies.

However, we also realize we still have way too much food for us, so we have been giving some of it away. That not only helps reduce our over-supply, but it helps strengthen the connections with the people around us, and allow us to share the delicious bounty of our summer labours.

Preparing for 2025’s garden

While I’m not quite ready to open up the seed catalogue we received a few weeks back, we are starting to talk about what we want to plant.

Our neighbour whose yard we use usually starts all of our tomatoes, some peppers, and a few other things indoors. We don’t have the space or skill to do so, but he’s a natural at it. He’s not sure if he’s going to be up for doing it this year, so in a few weeks my husband is going to go over there and visit and find out what the neighbour’s plans are, so we can assess what we need to do (or not do).

One of our ongoing struggles is growing fruit. We seem to have strawberries and saskatoons down, and we get a good harvest of apples and cherries from a friend’s trees, but we’d like more beyond these. We’ve got some blueberry, raspberry, and haskap berry plants, but they haven’t been productive, though this might be the year they turn around. But one thing we’ve been trying a few years and failing miserably at is watermelon and other melons.

Last year I had made plans to go and visit a homesteading fair. I ended up not going, but I checked out their website for their vendors, and found one of them was a seed company in Saskatchewan (the next province west) that has, among other things, seeds for watermelon (and another type of melon) that grow well in our climate. We will order these seeds shortly so that we don’t miss out on them.

Until next month…

This blog does get slow in the winter, mostly because the garden projects really slow down. However, with the above projects that need to get done, hopefully I’ll get a few posts out of them. There’s also the dried beans that I want to pressure can so they’re dinner-ready, and I’ve got a number of wines that are just about to get bottled.

But, if all of that fails and no posts come out of it, I’ll be back with a February update which will hopefully have more firm plans on what we’re planting—and I may have even ordered some seeds by then!

How to Make and Can Cranberry Juice (Three Methods)

Posted on by craig

My husband and I had high hopes of making it out to a provincial park this fall to forage for wild cranberries. Apparently they’re plentiful in a couple of the nearby parks, but the parks are quite large and we wouldn’t know where to look, so we ended up not making the trip out. As well, if we got there too early or too late and the berries weren’t ready or were gone, we could be staring right at a cranberry bush and just not know it.

My cranberry plans for the year were dashed… until the Sunday after Thanksgiving when I found bags of cranberries on clearance for 99 cents at the grocery store. (I looked again after Christmas but they didn’t have as many left over so it looks like they didn’t put them on clearance.)

Image from pexels.com

I wasn’t ready to deal with the cranberries yet, so I stored them all in the freezer — which ended up being a good thing. Freezing cranberries for at least a week reduces their pectin content by at least half. Since my plan was to make juice and not jam, I want as little pectin as possible in my final product.

I used some of the bags of cranberries to try a batch of cranberry wine — so that will likely be a future post too.

Three ways to juice and can cranberries

There are a few ways to go about this project of making cranberry juice and canning it — and one of those methods doesn’t even involve juicing the cranberries at all.

Since this was my first batch of cranberry juice, I only did one method (the steam juicer method), but I’ll outline the three methods here so you can go with your preference.

Juicing option one: Canning berries and sugar

This is the method that does not require any actual juicing and thus this one is the easiest method to take on. Plus, it just looks darn gorgeous.

In a warmed quart jar, add 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups of whole cranberries, then top with 1/4 to 1/2 cup of sugar. If you’re using smaller jars, adjust ratios, but don’t go larger than quarts.

Top with boiling water to 1/2 inch headspace, wipe rims, attach two part lids to fingertip tightness, and then process in a water bath canner (check the recipe card below for the canning time).

Since with this method you’re technically canning berries and not juice, sealed jars will have to sit on a shelf for 4-6 weeks for the berries to fully infuse the sugar-water and create juice.

Juicing option two: Boiling and straining cranberries

This method is more involved at this stage, but at the end you have simply juice in the jars and don’t have to worry about straining out berries when you pour a glass for yourself.

Starting by putting three pounds of cranberries (which is four of the typical 12 ounce bags) and four quarts of water in a large pot. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and let simmer for 5-10 minutes. Strain cranberries—a jelly bag or a mesh strainer lined with a couple layers of cheesecloth would both work. Let it sit for about a half hour for it to fully strain.

Reserve the juice but add the cranberries back to the pot along with two quarts of water. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and let simmer for another 5 minutes. Strain again, but you can strain for a shorter time now, about 15 minutes.

Reserve the juice but add the cranberries back to the pot one more time, along with one quart of water. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and let simmer for 5 minutes. Strain for a final time, letting it sit for 5-10 minutes.

Transfer all the juice to a new pot and bring to just below a simmer, about 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit, but do not bring to a boil. Add your desired amount of sugar (in the recipe card below).

Fill jars to 1/4 inch headspace, wipe rims, attach two-part lids to fingertip tightness, and process in a water bath canner as per the instructions in the recipe card.

Since this method started by making juice, juice can be consumed as soon as it cools, but sealed jars can sit on a shelf until needed.

Juicing option three: Using a steam juicer

Ever since getting a steam juicer, I’ve been looking for excuses to use it—and making cranberry juice seemed like the perfect time to pull it out of the pantry.

The process of making cranberry juice with the steam juicer is the same as any other—set up the steam juicer as per manufacturer directions, load it up with cranberries, and let the heat and steam do its work.

Technically, what you end up with is cranberry juice concentrate. You can keep at this concentration or dilute it with some water.

This is where I improvised a little bit, so here’s what I did and why:

  • Since by steam juicing, we are extracting the same amount of juice as we do in the “boil and strain” method, and that method ended up with 7 quarts (about 6.6 litres) of juice, I aimed for the same here.
  • I measured how much juice concentrate I had and then topped it off with water until I reached 7 quarts / 6.6 litres.
  • Since I was improvising a little bit, I did do a test to ensure this is safe to can. A couple years ago I bought some pH testing strips to test for acidity — you might remember these from chemistry class at school. To be safe for water bath canning, the pH must be 4.6 or below. With a quick test, the pH strip turned the colour for 4, meaning it was in the safe zone.

Satisfied with regard to safety, I then stirred in sugar, warmed it up again, and canned it as per the directions below.

Taste test: The final result

It was good! It was a little watered down, though. So, next time I will add less water (which will mean it’s even more acidic so definitely safe for canning).

Cranberry Juice

5 from 2 votes
Making and canning your own cranberry juice is not only cost-effective, but it allows you to control the amount of sugar and concentration of juice.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 1 hour
Canning Time 25 minutes
Course: Beverage
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 3 lbs Cranberries (four standard 12 ounce bags)
  • 7 qts Water (6.6 liters)
  • 1¾ – 3½ cups Sugar

Equipment

  • 1 Steam Juicer (Optional)
  • Strainer Lined with Cheesecloth (Optional)
  • Canning Jars and Lids
  • Water Bath Canner

Method
 

Boiling Berries Method
  1. Add cranberries to a large pot and add four quarts (3.8 litres) water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Cranberries should pop.
  2. Strain cranberries through a strainer lined with cheesecloth or through a jelly bag. Let drain for about 30 minutes. Collect juice and put aside.
  3. Return cranberries to the pot and add two quarts (1.9 litres) water. Simmer for 5 minutes. Strain again and let sit for 15 minutes. Collect juice and add to already reserved juice.
  4. Return cranberries to the pot and add one quart (0.9 litres) water. Simmer for 5 minutes. Strain again and let sit for 5 minutes. Collect juice and add to already reserved juice.
  5. Discard cranberry pulp.
  6. Prepare a water bath canner by pre-heating it and bringing the water to a near-simmer.
  7. Transfer reserved juice to a clean pot and warm about 180-190 degrees F, which is just barely simmering. Do not let the juice boil.
  8. Add sugar to taste, if you choose.
  9. Ladle hot juice into prewarmed canning jars, quart size or smaller, leaving a ¼ inch headspace. Wipe rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar and attach two-part lids to fingertip tightness.
  10. Process in boiling water canner for 10 minutes, or 15 minutes if at an elevation of 1,000 feet or higher. Start the timer once the water reaches a full boil and keep it at a full boil.
  11. Turn off heat and let sit for 5 minutes. Carefully remove jars from canner and let sit on a thick towel on a counter or table overnight. In the morning, check that jars have sealed. Sealed jars are shelf stable and can be kept for 12-18 months before quality begins to degrade. Unsealed jars should be put in the fridge and consumed promptly.
Steam Juicer Method
  1. Set up steam juicer as per manufacturer directions. Load the juicer with cranberries and turn on heat. Keep an eye on the juicer to ensure the water in the bottom pot does not run dry.
  2. Collect juice concentrate. Continue until berries no longer produce juice. Resist the temptation to mash the berries to obtain more juice, as this will lead to pulp in the juice.
  3. Transfer juice concentrate to a large clean pot. You can proceed with the juice concentrate as-is or add water. If adding water, ensure the total volume (of both water and juice) does not exceed seven quarts (6.6 litres). However, going for a full seven quarts produces a rather watered-down juice. I’d recommend going for a total volume (of both water and juice) of 5 quarts (4.7 litres). Adding less water will also ensure acidity is in the safe zone for canning.
  4. Prepare a water bath canner by pre-heating it and bringing the water to a near-simmer.
  5. Warm juice to about 180-190 degrees F, which is just barely simmering. Do not let the juice boil.
  6. Ladle hot juice into prewarmed canning jars, quart size or smaller, leaving a ¼ inch headspace. Wipe rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar and attach two-part lids to fingertip tightness.Add sugar to taste, if you choose.
  7. Process in boiling water canner for 10 minutes, or 15 minutes if at an elevation of 1,000 feet or higher. Start the timer once the water reaches a full boil and keep it at a full boil.
  8. Turn off heat and let sit for 5 minutes. Carefully remove jars from canner and let sit on a thick towel on a counter or table overnight. In the morning, check that jars have sealed. Sealed jars are shelf stable and can be kept for 12-18 months before quality begins to degrade. Unsealed jars should be put in the fridge and consumed promptly.
Canning Berries for Juice
  1. Using quart jars, add 1 ½ to 1 ¾ raw berries to each jar. If using frozen berries, let them thaw first. Then add ¼ to ½ cups sugar to each jar. If using smaller jars, see note below for measurements of berries and sugar.
  2. Prepare a water bath canner by pre-heating it and bringing the water to a near-simmer.
  3. With a kettle or pot, bring water to a boil and pour boiling water over cranberries and sugar, filling jars to ½ inch headspace.
  4. Wipe rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar and attach two-part lids to fingertip tightness.
  5. Process in a water bath canner for 25 minutes. If in altitudes above 1,000 feet, process for 30 minutes (1,000 to 6,000 feet), or for 35 minutes (over 6,000 feet).
  6. Turn off heat and let sit for 5 minutes. Carefully remove jars from canner and let sit on a thick towel on a counter or table overnight. In the morning, check that jars have sealed. Sealed jars are shelf stable and can be kept for 12-18 months before quality begins to degrade. Allow jars to sit for 4-6 weeks to allow the berries to infuse the sugar water with juice. Unsealed jars should be put in the fridge and consumed promptly, though they will not have much flavour since they won’t have the 4-6 weeks to infuse flavour.

Notes

If using pint jars for the “canning berries” method, use about ¾ berries and ⅛ to ¼ cups sugar.

Garden Update: December 2024

Posted on by craig

Well, we’ve finally reached Winter here in Winnipeg. As I’m writing this, the city is digging itself out of a week of moderate snow. (Moderate for Winnipeg, heavy for other parts of the world.) The active outdoor side of gardening is fully over until the spring thaw.

The transition from fall to winter was not ideal. There were several days where it was abnormally warm, and when we had a shift to cold, we knew it wouldn’t stay long.

Because of that, we didn’t plant our garlic. It normally goes in the ground at the end of fall, when it’s too cold for the cloves to sprout—they hibernate for the winter and then sprout when the warmer spring weather comes. But with the unpredictable fall, we knew if we planted them too early and then had some warm days, the garlic might sprout and the crop would be ruined for next year. And by the time we were sure we’d fully transitioned to winter, the ground was too solid to do the planting.

So… we’ll plant the garlic in the spring.

Planting in the spring is an equally valid way to do it. For us, though, we like planting in the fall so it’s one less thing to do in the spring—and fall planting means the garlic is one of the first crops to sprout and show life in the garden. It’ll be an interesting experiment to see if spring planting produces different results than fall planting.

Preserving projects still to come

This year was easily our biggest haul. I still haven’t done all the math on the weights and approximate grocery store value, but I plan to wrap that up before the end of the year. Despite not knowing those numbers, the visual evidence alone proves that we’ve outdone previous records. We have three deep freezers full, two fridge-freezers full, the storage room is packed with canned goods, and we’ve got loads of potatoes and squash.

There are a few preserving things still to be done. The vegetables that do well in cold storage usually start to spoil around January or February, so those need to be taken care of soon.

These include:

  • Onions, which I’m going to preserve as French onion soup, balsamic onion jam, and pickled onions, as well as leaving a handful in storage for dinner use in the hopes that we use them before they go bad.
  • Garlic, which I’ll preserve as pickled garlic, while also leaving a bunch for dinner use. We usually use our garlic harvest to plant the next one (in the fall), but I’m not sure if this garlic will last till May since we’re doing spring planting this time, so we’ll try throwing them in the freezer over winter and see if the simulates outdoor winter for them.
  • Potatoes, which we had a smaller harvest of and have given a lot away, but there are still lots left. We’re looking at boiling, mashing, and freezing them. They’re not the greatest when reheated (and with a ton of butter added), but it’s preferable to letting them go bad. We had plans of using potatoes in a lot of dinner dishes in the fall, but with how our busy schedules turned out, we had very few dinners at home, so we ate very few.
  • Squash, which we typically peel, chop, and freeze, and we’ll do that again this year.
  • Popcorn, which just needs to be stripped from the cob and stored in an airtight jar.
While the food storage room still needs some tidying, it is packed with food. The potatoes are kept in a darker room, and the freezers are in other rooms.

Maintaining this blog in winter

I have to admit, keeping up with posting on this blog is a bit of a challenge when I’m not in the middle of six different food projects on any given day. Winter is a time of relaxing and enjoying the harvest we had.

However, over the winter, you’ll likely see blog posts about wine making and perhaps some more about bread making.

I’ve got six wines on the go right now—pea pod, rosemary, beet, rhubarb, jalapeño, and grape—and a few more waiting to be started when the wine making jars are emptied (namely cranberry, corncob, and cherry).

Other winter projects

I have it on my lengthy to-do list to write a preserving cookbook. I’m hoping to hammer through that in the coming months and get it out and published. So a lot of my winter will likely be writing out recipes, some of which will also appear here.

After that, though I might not get it done this winter, is a wine making cookbook. One of my favourite projects from the garden is turning food into wine and the results are often quite spectacular and tasty.

A new logo

With the help of my bestie, Cali, I’ve created a new logo for Urban Homesteading.

This new logo features a preserving jar, a handful of fruits and veggies (though, admittedly, I don’t preserve bananas), and a retro hipster style to it. I really love this logo and I hope you do too.

Until next month…

Well, that about brings me to the end of this garden update—while I’m still busy with garden-related stuff, it’s quite a bit more relaxed than in the height of it. While I take it easy for the next few months, I’m already looking forward to diving head-first back into it in the spring.

How to Can Chicken (Raw Pack Method)

Posted on by craig

I’m sure many of you had a reaction when reading the title “How to Can Chicken”.

For many folks, I’m sure you’re picturing something rubbery, tasteless (or weird tasting), and gelatinous. You’re probably picturing what canned meat from the grocery store looks like.

Canning chicken at home is quite different—and quite good.

Like any frugal millennial, I buy the clearance chicken. I look for the big family size trays of chicken that are on their last sell-by date that the store marks down to 50%. It’s even better if chicken happens to be on sale that week in addition to the 50% markdown, usually resulting in about a 75% discount off normal prices.

In the past, I’d go home, portion the chicken out into little baggies, and throw them all in the freezer. When I needed a chicken breast for dinner, I’d pull out the little baggie and thaw it. Or if I forgot to thaw it, which happened more often than not, I’d force a knife through the frozen chicken to dice it up and then throw it in the pan to cook it.

But as we got more and more into gardening and our freezer space became increasingly limited, it became quite a problem to store all this frozen chicken. And when I finally got a pressure canner, I had opened myself up to other options for food storage by canning chicken. I usually buy the occasional try of chicken I see on sale and throw it in the freezer until I either run out of freezer space or run out of canned chicken, then make it a project to can some more.

Canning chicken is remarkably easy with the proper equipment (namely, a pressure canner), and the result is a fully cooked jar of chicken that’s been marinating in its own juices, ready to throw into the pan for a quick and easy dinner.

While preserving chicken through canning was born out of necessity, it’s quickly become a preference. I only handle raw chicken once while canning them, dinner never takes more than 15 minutes to throw together, and I always have it on hand for when I need it.

The right supplies

While both chicken breasts and chicken thighs are suitable for canning, I’ve seen a handful of folks comment that canned chicken breast is somewhat lacking in flavour, but chicken thighs retain their flavour. As a result, I’ve always canned chicken thighs. Plus, chicken thighs are cheaper and I already mentioned I’m a frugal millennial.

There are also recipes for canning larger pieces of chicken with bones, if you happen to come into whole chickens that need to be preserved.

Beyond the meat, you’ll need canning jars, with lids and rings. My husband and I are not big meat eaters, so we find a half pint / one cup jar of chicken works well for the two of us. But if you’re bigger meat eaters or have a bigger family to feed, you can also can these in pint / two cup jars or quart / one litre jars.

You will need a pressure canner and there is no alternative. Meat cannot be canned in a water bath canner, despite what some may say. Water bath canners do not reach a high enough temperature to kill of botulism or other potentially harmful stuff; rebel canners will often say to boil jars of meat extra long, perhaps a few hours, but that doesn’t change the fact that it does not get hot enough to kill off potentially-deadly botulism. Also, a pressure cooker cannot be used in place of a pressure canner, as the pressure is not as tightly regulated.

If you’re new to pressure canning, this Canning 101 post should get you started. Canning chicken is quite an easy starter recipe.

How to can chicken

You can either hot pack or raw pack chicken. I quite like the raw pack method because there are fewer steps involved. (This recipe is only for the raw pack method of boneless skinless chicken; you are able to can chicken with bones but the process is a little different.)

To start, ensure your chicken is fully thawed. If any parts are frozen, it may prevent the jars from reaching the full necessary temperature. Cut the chicken into one-inch cubes or smaller, trimming off any fat and gristle.

Pack the chicken into jars, leaving a one-and-a-quarter-inch headspace. If you would like, you can also add water or chicken broth, keeping to that one-and-a-quarter-inch headspace. I generally do not, because the chicken releases juices to fill the jar.

Also optional, top off each jar with a bit of salt. If you’re watching your salt, you can definitely skip this. However, adding a bit of salt will help with the flavour of the final product.

When the chicken is in the jars, wipe the rims with a paper towel wetted with vinegar. Then screw on the two part lids to fingertip tightness.

Process in a pressure canner, as per your pressure canner’s directions. For pints and smaller, process for 75 minutes. For quart sizes, process for 90 minutes.

Once canner has depressurized and it is safe to open, as per your canner’s instructions, transfer jars to a thick towel on a counter or table and allow to fully cool overnight. In the morning, check that the jars have sealed (with a depressed lid); sealed jars can be stored for about a year. If any jars did not seal, store them in the fridge and use them promptly.

How to use canned chicken

I find canned chicken a great on-hand dinner solution. I cook up the veggies and sauce—or whatever it is I’m making—and then dump in a jar of canned chicken. It usually comes out as a clump, so I have to gently break it up with a spoon, fork, or spatula. However, you’ll want to be gentle with it because it is so tender it will completely fall apart like finely shredded chicken.

It’s perfect for those evenings where I want to make dinner at home but don’t have energy for anything fancy—just throw it in the pan with other ingredients and it’s good to go!

How to Can Chicken (Raw Pack Method)

5 from 1 vote
Canning chicken is a great way to not only preserve chicken for long term storage, but it means you have fully cooked chicken on hand for quick and easy dinners.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Ingredients Equipment Method

Ingredients
  

  • Boneless, Skinless Chicken
  • Salt (Optional)

Equipment

  • Pressure Canner
  • Mason Jars with Rings and Lids

Method
 

  1. If chicken was frozen, ensure it's fully thawed before beginning. Trim excess fat and cut chicken into one-inch cubes or smaller.
  2. Put chicken in jars (quart size or smaller), leaving 1¼" headspace. Add salt to each jar (¼ teaspoon for half pints, ½ teaspoon for pints, and 1 teaspoon for quarts).
  3. Optional: You can add water or chicken broth up to the 1¼" headspace. I generally do not do this. The chicken will release its own juices in the canning process.
  4. Wipe jar rims with a paper towel wetted with vinegar. Attach lids and rings and screw to fingertip tightness.
  5. Process in a pressure canner, as per the canner directions:
    For pints and smaller: 75 minutes at 10 psi.
    For quarts: 90 minutes at 10 psi.
    Adjust for altitude if necessary.

How to Dry Chamomile Flowers for Tea

Posted on by craig

This year in the garden has seen us expand into other areas beyond simply preserving vegetables and fruit. We’ve been working on proteins with some success—we got a ton of black beans but next to no mushrooms. But the other focus this year was juices and other drinks.

So far this year, we’ve done:

We’ve also done a handful of other things like start up a half dozen different types of wine, and in the past I’ve made a Bloody Mary mix for drinking too.

But of all of these, the exciting new project was chamomile.

Enjoying a calming cup

Chamomile is one of my favourite teas. I have to be careful about how much caffeine I consume because it can cause stomach issues, and that’s always presented a problem. Decaf coffee is still somewhat caffeinated, same with decaf tea, so they are both no-go when I need to limit caffeine, and most caffeine-free herbal teas just don’t appeal to me.

Strangely, chamomile has always been an exception. When I tried my first cup, I immediately fell in love with the flavour.

My husband likes to end each night with a mug of Sleepytime tea. I took a look at the ingredient list of the brand we buy and the first two items were mint and chamomile, so he now drinks a homemade variation on Sleepytime that comes right from the garden patch at the side of our house.

I find homegrown chamomile considerably stronger than storebought. Perhaps it’s because it’s fresher or because it’s been jostled around less, but whatever the reason, I have to be careful when I drink it because on the right day it can put me out like a light.

Growing chamomile

We had tried to grow chamomile from seed a few times but really gotten nowhere with it. We generally don’t have luck with starting seeds indoors, and then rarely have luck with direct planting flower seeds in the garden.

This past spring, though, I found chamomile at a local greenhouse and snapped up three seedlings.

Once they established in our garden, they were prolific. They grew to about knee height and were completely decked out with little white flowers with yellow centres. They seem to be a pretty easy-to-care-for plant; we water daily when it’s hot and dry and every other day when it’s a little milder out, and rarely did these plants look droopy.

Harvesting chamomile

When harvesting chamomile, you want the flower heads and not much else. While that’s a relatively easy task, it becomes difficult when you’re dealing with dozens or hundreds of flowers. And with chamomile, the more you harvest, the more it grows, so you do want to harvest as much as you can.

I got in the habit of going out every Saturday and picking everything that looked like a decent size. I tried different methods—scissors (way too laborious and unnecessary), plucking them individually (best way, but at a flower at a time it takes a long time), and eventually settled on my preferred method. If I “rake” my fingers through the flower and then gently press my fingers together, locking the flowers in my hand and then gently pull up, the stems snapped and the flowers remained in my hand. I would get some stem attached to the flowers still, but usually not much. If it was a long stem, I’d trim it off, but if it was shorter I’d just leave it.

Drying chamomile

Drying chamomile is particularly easy. You just lay the flowers out in a tray or dish and let it sit for seven to ten days.

My routine was to harvest on a Saturday and put them all in a baking dish and leave it on the counter. The next Saturday I’d harvest a new batch and fill a second dish, moving the first dish to the right, so I could keep track of which was newest and which was oldest. And on the third Saturday, I’d empty that first dish of dried flowers into an airtight jar and reuse that dish for that day’s harvest.

Letting them dry is a hands-off activity. Sometimes if the dish was particularly full, I’d shake it or stir it once or twice a day to ensure that air was circulating past all the flowers.

Making tea from dried chamomile

A good rule of thumb is to use a teaspoon of dried flowers for a cup of tea, adding more or less based on your preferences.

You can use a tea infuser for this. We also have a Brewt (identical to this), which is a handy device for looseleaf tea, and T-Sac teabags meant for looseleaf tea—both of these work great too.

Print
5 from 1 vote

How to Dry Chamomile Flowers for Tea

If you have a flowering chamomile plant, harvesting and drying the flowers is incredibly easy and yields a delicious and calming mug of chamomile tea.
Prep Time10 minutes
Course: Beverage
Keyword: Chamomile Tea

Equipment

  • Cookie sheet or baking dish

Materials

  • Chamomile Flowers

Instructions

  • Harvest chamomile flower heads.
  • Lay out flower heads on a cookie sheet or a baking dish in a thin layer. Place in a cool, dry spot.
  • Let sit for 7-10 days to fully dry.
  • Store dried flowers in an airtight container.
  • To enjoy, steep 1 teaspoon of flowers per cup of tea.

Garden Update: November 2024

Posted on by craig

While stuff has stopped growing in the garden for weeks now, we’re still busy wrapping up the tail end of the garden, harvest, and preserving season.

Everything has been pulled from the ground, but as of writing this, I’m drying rose hips for tea, figuring out what to do with the massive horseradish haul, and still have to finish off the popcorn.

There were several points in the last couple months where we were overwhelmed, especially when the harvest overlapped with Thanksgiving, five birthdays, and a handful of other social engagements, but we kept telling ourselves that come November it’s pretty much all over and we’ll be glad we did it.

And you know what? Even back on November 1st I was feeling that relief. I have a solid seven months ahead of me of just enjoying this food and not having to do any garden or preserving work.

End of season reflections

I’ve yet to do my annual tally of total weight harvested and the equivalent grocery value, but it’ll be interesting once I get to it. 2024 was a record year for things like carrots, beets, garlic, and rhubarb, but lower than average for corn, potatoes, and tomatoes. I’m not sure how the whole harvest balances out.

Some successes and new discoveries included:

  • Chamomile. I’d been wanting to grow this for years but finally found seedlings. The tea is fantastic so we will be upping our chamomile next year.
  • Rose hips. They’re currently in the dehydrator but I can’t wait to try them in tea. The Sleepytime Tea I buy is a mix of six or seven ingredients, but the first three are chamomile, mint, and rose (they use rosebuds, I’d use rose hips), so I’m hoping we come up with a blend pretty similar.
  • I love my steam juicer. Like, a lot. I use it frequently.

Some “better luck next time” experiences this year included:

  • Growing mushrooms were a flop. We did get some super tiny mushrooms but certainly not enough to make the effort worth it. However, we will try again next year. It often takes us a couple years to figure out how to make something really work, so maybe the same is true here.
  • The rainy and cold start to the season created all sorts of problems. Our chickpeas didn’t grow and we got next to no kidney beans. We did manage a record haul of black beans though!

Planning for next year

Even though we’re just winding down this year’s garden, we can’t help but think ahead to next year already.

In addition to expanding the chamomile mentioned above, we’ve got a few other changes in mind:

  • We really want mushrooms to work. Over the winter, I’ll reach out to my “mushroom guy” and run our experience past him and see if we can figure out what might’ve gone wrong this year and figure out a better strategy for 2025.
  • We like to rotate crops a bit. It’s good for the soil, but we also learn that certain produce grows better in different parts of our garden. It might be due to differences in sun, water retention in soil, soil quality, microorganisms, or a million other things. The big change is moving the corn. We usually plant it in this long stretch between our sidewalk and fence. Between the corn and the fence we usually have sunflowers. It seems sometimes the sunflowers grow fast and shade the corn, stunting their growth—and other times it seems the opposite with the corn stunting the sunflowers. Also, while the squirrel raids our whole garden, it lives in the tree right next to the corn, so maybe moving it away will reduce the damage it does.
  • Popcorn is also a problem that requires changing next year. The issue is that popcorn needs to completely dry on the stalk before it’s picked, which means it’s in the garden extra long and the squirrel will eventually raid it. In 2023, it devastated our entire popcorn patch in half a day. This year, we noticed it raiding the popcorn fairly early in, so my husband chopped all the popcorn down and hung the stalks upside down in the garage to let them dry. We thought we’d defeated the squirrel… only to later discover other rodents in the garage had eaten a good portion of our popcorn. We did get a harvest this year, but not as nice as back in 2022 before the local rodents discovered how tasty popcorn is. For 2025, the plan is to cut them down when we see the squirrel starting to pay attention, and then hang them upside down indoors where it’s rodent free.

Enjoying the fruits of our labour

All work aside, we now enter into my favourite time of year—enjoying our abundance.

We share our harvest with a handful of people—family, friends, and neighbours. With the overwhelming hauls of food we bring in, even giving out a considerable amount of food leaves more than enough for our family of two for a full year.

Ahead of us we have a year of tasty dinners—pasta with home canned pasta sauce, pesto dinners with frozen pesto sauce, curries with home canned butter chicken sauce, soups for lunches, vegetables to accompany every meal, fruit to throw in overnight oats, juices to keep us going, and country wines for sharing with guests.

How to Make Rhubarb Wine

Posted on by craig

When my husband and I started on our journey of urban homesteading, it was pretty basic. He wanted to grow a row of squash and a row of potatoes and all we had to do was figure out a place to store them.

As time went on, our garden grew more and more, to where it’s now a massive operation, especially given our small property. Last year we harvested over 600 kg / 1300 lbs of produce. A lot of that gets frozen, dehydrated, fermented, and canned, so we can enjoy it for months to come. It’s often just as the garden season is starting up that we’re finishing off what we had of last year’s harvest.

Still, though, as our harvest yield continues to skyrocket, we need to find more ways to use the food, partly because we can only eat so much of it in one year, but partly because we only have so much freezer space. While I still have to compile my spreadsheet of this year’s harvest to see if overall we’ve increased or decreased our yield, I do know we’ve hit a record for rhubarb, beets, and carrots, among other things.

Rhubarb is a particular challenge. The most common use for it is desserts like rhubarb crumble and rhubarb pie…and we’re not really dessert people.

That’s where country wines come in. If you’re brand new to wine-making, you might want to check out this rough guide to country wines that I put together a while back.

A starter wine

While I’d worked with a few store-bought wine kits before starting on my adventures in country wines, I wasn’t particularly experienced. I was grateful to receive wine-making equipment from one of my mom’s friends, so I had a lot of the tools I’d need, but you can start with just a big jar and nothing else. My rough guide talks about some of the equipment and some of the substitutions and what’s really necessary.

I can’t remember if dandelion wine or rhubarb wine was the first country wine I made. Either way, rhubarb was the first or second, back when I was quite new to this…and the recipe turned out great on the first try. I’ve made a tweak to it for a better result, which I’ll talk about later, but this is a great starter project for people exploring country wines.

What really draws me to country wines, though, is the price. Yes, there’s an investment in some equipment, but beyond that, the costs are minimal. Yeast, sugar, yeast nutrient, and tannin are all fairly cheap and the main ingredient—in this case, rhubarb—grows in our garden, so it’s free.

Even if you don’t have rhubarb in your garden, this recipe doesn’t take a lot, so if you head to a farmers market or the grocery store during rhubarb season, you might pick up what you need for a decent price. Or if you have a friend, family member, or colleague who has rhubarb in their garden, they’re probably eager to give you piles of the stuff because it can be quite productive.

How to make rhubarb wine

You’ll find the measurements of each ingredient in the recipe card at the bottom of this post. The recipe is measured for a one-gallon batch—which is the perfect size for a small rhubarb harvest, a small space to work in, or a first-time wine-maker. However, if you want to make a five-gallon batch, simply multiply all measurements by five.

After you clean and chop the rhubarb into small pieces—I usually strive for half-inch chunks—place this in the bottom of your fermentation vessel (the jar or container you’re making wine in), along with the sugar. Mix it well and let it sit covered in a dark spot for a few days to let the sugar draw all the juice out of the rhubarb.

(You can also chop and freeze the rhubarb and make the wine later. I don’t usually have the time to make wine in the height of garden season, so everything just gets frozen and then pulled out when I need it.)

After two to three days have passed and the sugar has pulled all the juice out, strain out the solid rhubarb and gently rinse with water—being sure to save this rinsewater. You’re washing off some of the last bits of sugar and juice, so you want to capture this because you’ll add it to the fermentation vessel. This can be done by placing the rhubarb in a wire mesh strainer over a large bowl and lightly rinsing with the sprayer attachment on the faucet—the rhubarb gets rinsed and that tasty water is collected in the bowl. Depending on the size of your bowl and strainer, you may need to do this in a few batches.

Add this rinsewater to the fermentation vessel, along with the yeast nutrient and tannin powder. If needed, fill the vessel with water to the one-gallon mark. Give everything a good stir, and then sprinkle half a package of wine yeast on top. If desired, you can bloom the yeast for a few minutes by letting it sit in a small cup of water before pouring into the wine. I don’t usually bloom the yeast first—I just dump it in—and I’ve had no issues nor seen any quality differences.

(Looking to cut costs or go even more rustic? Yeast nutrient can be replaced with a handful of raisins and tannin powder can be replaced with a cup of strong black / English breakfast tea cooled to room temperature.)

Cover it with a lid with an airlock and let it sit in a dark place at room temperature to ferment.

After two weeks, rack the wine (transfer the wine) to another fermentation vessel, leaving the sediment behind. Do this every two to three weeks until the wine is fully fermented (there are no more bubbles forming in the airlock). This should take about six weeks, but if you’re uncertain, you can leave it a few weeks longer.

When fermentation is finished, rack (transfer) the wine into wine bottles, cap, and store. Rhubarb wine can be drunk right away, but it tastes better the longer it sits. I usually put aside a few bottles in the back of a cupboard and promptly forget about them, so when I rediscover them I have some nicely-aged rhubarb wine to enjoy.

A tastier recipe variation

Last year I bought a steam juicer. It’s a handy set of pots that extracts juice from fruits and vegetables. I was curious to try it with rhubarb wine—I’d juice the rhubarb and add the juice to the fermentation vessel with the sugar, water, and all other ingredients. I used the same recipe with the only change being I didn’t leave the sugar and whole rhubarb to sit for a few days.

The result is a much smoother feeling wine with a brighter taste. Plus it means I can skip the whole step of scooping out rhubarb and washing it, so it’s easier too.

I highly recommend this if you own a steam juicer or have some other method of juicing rhubarb. I talk a bit more about juicing rhubarb (and canning the juice) in this post.

A crowd pleaser

Rhubarb wine is easily one of my most popular country wines. It feels nostalgic and it tastes delicious, and for me it’s dirt cheap and extremely easy.

I’ve had a handful of people glare at the bottle very skeptically but then quickly learn they love it and finish off the bottle.

If you’re looking for a great starter wine, this is definitely the one!

Rhubarb Wine

5 from 2 votes
An easy and tasty recipe for those new to country wines and those who are experienced but are looking for an old favourite.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 30 minutes
Fermenting Time 45 days
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: wine
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 1 gallon Rhubarb, washed and chopped in small slices
  • 3 lbs Sugar
  • 2-3 quarts Water
  • ¼ tsp Tannin Powder (See notes)
  • 1 tsp Yeast Nutrient (See notes)
  • 1 packet Wine Yeast

Equipment

  • One Gallon Fermentation Vessel with Airlock

Method
 

  1. Wash and chop rhubarb into small slices and place in fermentation vessel or a large bowl or pot.
  2. Cover with sugar and stir to coat and evenly distribute. Cover with a lid or tea towel secured with a rubber band and let sit for 2-3 days. The sugar will extract juice from the rhubarb. (See notes below for an alternative method if you have a steam juicer.)
  3. After 2-3 days you should have a lot of juice. Separate juice from rhubarb chunks. If the juice is not already in the fermentation vessel, put in there. Lightly rinse rhubarb chunks and save the rinse water. Add the rinse water to the fermentation vessel. If needed, add water until you have about a gallon of liquid in the vessel.
  4. Add tannin and yeast nutrient and stir until dissolved.
  5. Sprinkle about half the packet of yeast on top. If desired, you could bloom the yeast in a small amount of water first.
  6. Cover with a lid with an airlock and let sit at room temperature for about six weeks to ferment. Every two weeks or so, rack the wine (transfer the wine) to a new fermentation vessel to remove it from the sediment.
  7. When fermentation has fully stopped (and it may take longer than six weeks), siphon the wine into wine bottles, cork, and store. Rhubarb wine can be enjoyed immediately, but flavour does improve with aging.

Notes

Tannin Powder can be replaced with a cup of strongly-brewed black tea (English Breakfast tea), cooled to room temperature.
Yeast Nutrient can be replaced with a small handful of raisins.
Alternative Method:
Instead of letting the sugar extract the juice from the rhubarb for 2-3 days, you can extract juice yourself. If you have a steam juicer or other method of extracting juice, you can do so and add the juice directly to the fermentation vessel, along with the sugar and all other ingredients. I find this method produces a smoother and more flavourful wine.