Reading in an instruction book how to scald tomatoes when making salsa created a need to be creative. The instructions said to dip each tomato into boiling water for 6 seconds. With 3 bushel of tomatoes waiting to be peeled, there certainly was a need to go faster than that. I remembered visiting my neighbor last year and watching her accomplish that task. It was so amazing to watch her procedure. She had a bag that she put a couple of gallons of tomatoes into. This bag was made out of a mesh type material. She just dipped the bag full of tomatoes into the boiling water, waited the time, pulled the bag out and dumped the tomatoes into cold water to cool for equal time.
Last year after visiting my tomato canning neighbor I procured a bag. Since that time I have used that bag to blanch corn on the cob, broccoli, summer squash, scald tomatoes, and scald peaches.
 |
| Putting corn in the blanching bag |
 |
| Bags full of corn ready to blanch |
 |
| Putting corn into boiling water |
 |
| Loop the handles of the bag over the pot handles |
 |
| Pots heating on cache cooker in garden shed |
 |
| Timing the blanching process |
 |
| Removing bag of blanched corn from boiling pot |
 |
| Put hot ears of corn in cold water in cooler. |
 |
| When corn is cold enough you can freeze on cob or cut off . |
I didn't do pears this year or I would have used it for that also. It is so fast to scald or blanch the food using a mesh bag. You save time bringing your water to a boil, because you can use the same water over and over again. You save time putting the food in the water and you really save a lot of time getting the food out of the water. You also save space. The same job can be done with a blanching pan, but who needs to store another pan the rest of the year. There is also a savings of money because you don't have to buy another pan to do the job.
The blanching and scalding times differ depending on the type of food and what you are doing with it. There is a wonderful chart giving you some valuable information on
Blanching vegetables for freezing posted by the University of Minnesota Extension.
If you want to scald fruits or tomatoes for peeling to use fresh, only scald for 6 to 10 seconds. For peeling the food before canning you may want to opt for quicker peeling and leave the food in the boiling water as long as 20 seconds. I prefer using the shorter scalding time because I like to cut the fruit in half or core it before the skin slips off and i am left holding a slick fruit that is harder to cut and handle.
You can purchase a blanching/scalding bag from
http://www.juicersandjuicing.com/contact. Just send them an email to get the information. You will be glad you did.
I just want to add a note to this article after using this information for several years. I was having a hard time putting my eggs into the boiling water without them cracking. I decided to use my blanching bag to lower them all at once into the boiling water and it works like a charm. I have boiled eggs for my whole life by bringing the heat up with them in the water. I learned rather recently that if you put the raw egg into boiling water they will be easier to peel as hard boiled eggs. Indeed they are and now I know how to get them in and out of there easily.
