We make our own caramel . . it is one of the items we have become well known for, and our customers constantly beg us to jar it and sell it.
We WANT to, but it seems complicated . . . or is it?
I have read that you can't heat seal (the typical in house canning process for jams, etc) caramel because using this method, for certain products will in fact induce bacteria. We also can't afford to have it "canned" at a professional canning plant either.
What we want to do, is simply pour the hot caramel into jars and let it cool. Then put the lid on it, with a shrink seal. Understanding that this does not preserve the life of the caramel.
We want to add a 'Keep Refrigerated" notation on the label and put a short expiration date. . . like 3 or 4 weeks. This will help prevent customers from keeping it in the fridge for years and wondering why it went bad lol.
Anyway . . I am having a hard time finding information about this. Do we break any FDA guide lines by selling it in a jar but not actually 'canning' it? Are we ok to do this?
I think you're right to be concerned with health/safety issues. But I'm not sure it's an FDA issue. You should first ask your health inspector. (If you have a county license, they may not care. If you have a Dept of Ag & Mkts license they get very picky.) Or contact Cornell's Northeast Center for Food Entrepreneurship (NECFE) http://necfe.foodscience.cornell.edu/ They can point you in the right direction.
Thank you for the advice.
We fall under Department of Health, so I gave them a call. Very nice people!!
They informed me that we do not violate any rules or food regulations so long as we sell it only in our store. If we decide to sell the caramel in other stores, then we have to obtain a "Schedule" by submitting the recipe and process to cornell, etc.
Very good information! We do not currently wholesale any of our products, so I have never researched this area - but I am glad I found this out today. I was not aware of the whole schedule process, or even that it was needed in order to place our products in other stores.
We have other products that other bakeries and stores are always asking us to wholesale. We currently have no interest . however . . this is great info - in the event that we ever do decide to do this.
Thank you!!!
The safer way to pack this is to put the hot caramel into preheated dry jars and to screw down sterile lids while HOT. NO hot water bath but you will develop a proper vacuum seal as the jar tops show in the dimple.
This imitates the heat shrink seal that is used for commercial packing of honey (very similar in properties regarding bacteria and molds). YES I know honey has no fat or dairy...but a similar water and sugar content.
Then your label with a "discard after date" and "refrigerate at all times" should be as much as you need to write. Please avoid the "best before" statement as this does not communicate the perishability well enough.
Ahhhh....NOT. I worked for a honey producers co-op one honey season. In addition to learning how to grade, process and can honey, I got to learn such weird stuff such as how to spot the difference between a honeybee and a wasp at 20 feet. And how to make good beeswax candles. Also how to spot the fakes (sugar added to wet honey to improve the price).
Hey, that's some good knowledge right there!
Ahhhh....NOT. I worked for a honey producers co-op one honey season. In addition to learning how to grade, process and can honey, I got to learn such weird stuff such as how to spot the difference between a honeybee and a wasp at 20 feet. And how to make good beeswax candles. Also how to spot the fakes (sugar added to wet honey to improve the price).
BakingIrene, that is so interesting... I would like to know how to spot the difference between those. please tell us how?
Honey bees are a more subtle colour than wasps--they are brown and yellow-brown where the wasps are a brighter yellow and definitely black not brown. There is also a shape difference that you can see when they are side by side. Bees are a little more curvey (I would say) and less shiny.
They both congregated at the exhaust vents outside the honey processing plant in the fall when they were trying to top up their hives for winter. The difference to humans is that wasps will sting wherever, and bees have to be a lot closer to home to attack and then die.
Honey bees are a more subtle colour than wasps--they are brown and yellow-brown where the wasps are a brighter yellow and definitely black not brown. There is also a shape difference that you can see when they are side by side. Bees are a little more curvey (I would say) and less shiny.
They both congregated at the exhaust vents outside the honey processing plant in the fall when they were trying to top up their hives for winter. The difference to humans is that wasps will sting wherever, and bees have to be a lot closer to home to attack and then die.
Thanks!
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