SoR

Okay, thanks a lot.

Okay, one more question, sorry.

Violet, you said earlier in thread, and I've seen you say in a couple other places about how food ph can shift as it sits in jar, and I wasn't sure what that meant in terms of food preservation. I understand different ph creates different technique or processing time requirements, but I'm not following what the shelf ph would do. I would think that ph would no longer be important (to food spoilage, anyway) once everything in a sealed jar was dead. Can you explain what the changing ph would be doing to the food?

Thanks.

I imagine that boiling an extra ten minutes will detrimentally impact the end product quality, but it'll be better than wasting them, so I think I'll do that, and I'll always peel from now on. Thanks.

Yeah, I can up potatoes for future mashing, and I've always left the skins on. I just checked the Ball, and I see that it does say to peel them all and leave small ones whole. I guess I never had a reason to look up potatoes, as I had always been doing them the way I had been taught originally.

I don't actually have all that many cans of mashing stock right now, so I guess it won't be too bad to have to toss them. Better than anybody getting sick. I just really hate to waste food. Oh well. Thanks for letting me know.

Just found the forum; first post. Sorry to join to ask a question, but here it is:

Earlier in the thread, it was said that potatoes have to be peeled because the skins harbor botulism. Is this true? Why does pressure canning not kill it?

I was always taught to just can small potatoes whole, peel on, and I figured the instruction to peel big potatoes was for aesthetic reasons (the peel falls off into mush). We like our mashed with peel on, so I peel for stew, but not for mashed.

Have I been taking a big risk all this time? Do I need to toss my mash-stash?

I will be much obliged for any info anybody may have. I hate the thought of wasting all those potatoes, but I certainly don't want to take any chances, even if I have always been taking the risk, unknowingly.