Our Italian culture continues, preserving tomato sauce for the year. Three generations involved, we will do this over two weekends and produce about 400 bottles
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Round 2 this weekend.
A kilo of tomatoes is roughly a 750ml bottle of sauce. We have 170kg of tomatoes, starting tomorrow.
First the tomatoes are put in boiling water, in small batches, bring to boil and the remove and allow excess water to drain while pricking with fork.
Then the tomatoes can go into the purée machine, making sure to run the skin and pulp through a couple of times.
Add salt, stir and then bottle.
Put bottles in a large drum, fill with water, bring to boil for 2 hours (some say 30 minutes, but my grandparents always said longer is better sauce).
Let it cool overnight, and unload in next day.
We have always had an abundance of wood, so all heating has been wood fired.
The past few years I’ve thought about going gas, but today after reading about gas shortages we’re heading for and the price, I’ve decided that it’s best to stick with the wood fire. Won’t cost us a cent, and it’s more romantic.
My grandfather built this 70 years ago as a temporary bbq/furnace with standard house bricks lying around the place. And later replaced the majority of the bricks with bricks designed to handle the heat. Stage 2 was done about 45 years ago.