How to Can Apples

This past week, we learned to can tomatoes, and we enjoyed it so much, we bought a bunch of apples and canned them, too!

Now, a lot of people have been asking me why I’m getting into canning when I could just freeze stuff. Well…that’s true. Freezing things is way easier…except that I have a 5.5 cubic foot freezer, and it’s currently full to capacity! I have more shelf space than I do freezer space…

So I’m canning.

Here’s how to can apples:

First, be sure to sanitize your jars, lids, and rings.

Then, slice the apples into thin slices. We threw them into a bowl and sprinkled lemon juice over them to keep them from browning as we prepared them.

Then, you prepare your liquid to store them in. You can use unsweetened fruit juice, water, sugar syrup, or honey syrup. I wouldn’t use corn syrup because if it’s not organic, it’s most likely GMO. We did an extra light sugar syrup because I read the directions so quickly I didn’t realize we could use water. If I had read more closely, I would have used water.

Anyway, we did syrup. So after the apples were sliced, we boiled them in the syrup for 5 minutes and then (using a wide mouth canning funnel) ladled them into jars. We poured hot syrup over the apples until there was only a 1/2 inch of headspace left. Then we put on the rings and lids, and screwed the bands on finger-tight.

We slowly lowered them into the simmering water bath and processed them for 20 minutes. Voila! Canned apples!

Let them sit for 24 hours to cool, and the tops should seal nicely. Then they can be stored away for the winter and brought back out as a treat sometime. :)