canning bananas

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I got a box of bananas from the food bank person in my area, -- I decided to can them-- I cut them in slices about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick, made a syrup -
1 qt water
2 cups sugar
2 tbls lemon juice
1 tbls white vinegar

filled the jars, shook them down to 3/4 inch head space, filled the jars to 1/2 inch with syrup
pressure canned at 10 lbls for 15 min, let it cool down naturally [no cold water]
--it tastes very good--
any comments??
 
a taste test in our family was 100% positive, with the possible exception of the "reminds me of baby food" comment. -- Some "sources" on the net say you can't can bananas-- I will bet they are wrong.
but-- should they fail in time-- it will make great wine.
 
Here is a good post***see edit below***, with sources, on canning bananas safely. I haven't tried it personally, but it's a page that I have bookmarked in my preserving tab. They definitely recommend pressure canning, not water bath, due to the low acidity of bananas, which is obviously what you did. It's always a wonderful thing when we can obtain a food at a great price in bulk and preserve it to eat at our leisure!

I don't know if you've made fruit leather, but I love to mix a mashed banana or two in a batch with another fruit - I've done it with raspberry, cherry and blueberry fruit leathers, and they add a nice subtle flavor and I think improve the texture as well!

edited to add*****
I had that page bookmarked - but I just followed the links they provided, and neither link actually had any recommendations at all on canning bananas, so I think the writer extrapolated recipes from other types of fruit. I would have researched this thoroughly before trying - so I apologize for recommending the page. I will (for myself) definitely do a lot more research and find a tested recipe before ever attempting to can bananas. I would probably freeze, dry or make fruit leather with it before I would can bananas without seeing a properly documented tested recipe. I do know that there are many people who do things that aren't tested first and are just fine (think canning cakes! yum), but I like to fall into the better safe than sorry camp.

If anyone knows of a link to such a tested recipe, I would surely love to see it!
 
Ripe Bananas are low acid but have sugar, by adding the acid and the sugar, it should be fine for low altitude water bath, -- but-- I am not low elevation, and -I play it safe when dealing with my family's saftey also.

__________ Sat Apr 26, 2014 12:25 pm __________

I smashed up all the over-ripe ones and mixed in- 2 tbls sugar and 1 tsp lemon juice and 1 tsp white vinegar / qt
the first batch boiled over-- so-- I filled the jars an inch from the top and it worked fine.
 
I've made banana jam before; it held marvelously. It's best when made from bananas that are just a bit over-ripe for making banana bread. If there's interest, I'll dig up my recipe. The jam is a nice deep rose color; watching it cook is always fun because you can see it change from banana-colored to rose or pink in the pan! :)
 
the Wife, Tia my daughter and I ,had fun, playing with bananas this am, -- the jar second from the left is an old, square, "presto" <br /><br /> __________ Sat Apr 26, 2014 5:37 pm __________ <br /><br /> we also went to the dollar store, they had qt jars for $9 / doz.-- yea!!
 

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I would also be interested in different banana canning recipes as well. I unfortunately have never canned. But my sister is going to be buying canning supplies and her neighbor is going to to teach us how to can this year.
 

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