A couple weeks ago, I went into the city for our once-a-quarter Big Shopping, and picked up a few things for canning (or re-canning). I have a 40-lb. box of boneless skinless chicken breasts waiting my attention in the freezer, and last week I canned up 12 pints of mushrooms.

I also got a case of cheap mustard. It's not a condiment I care for, but Don likes mustard with his sandwiches, so having an abundant supply is convenient. For this reason I buy it bulk, and re-can it into smaller portions.

It was also an excuse to use, for the first time, the two water-bath canners I got for my birthday last year.

I had been storing the canners in the barn, so I pulled them out, along with the mustard (the case held four containers of mustard, but one was already in the house).

I like to hot-pack mustard, so I scooped it all into a pot, using a double-boiler arrangement so the condiment wouldn't scorch. Older Daughter didn't know I had started this canning project until she came out of her room and saw the full pot. She burst out laughing. "That's a lot of mustard!"

The mustard heats slowly since it's not over direct heat. I stirred it periodically. Meanwhile I washed jars. I also washed out the mustard containers since Don likes to use them in his shop.

Those four containers filled 25 pints.

Scalding the lids and rings.

The two canners held 18 pints between them. What a joy to have so much room! (Ignore the old labels on the lids. They'll come off in the water bath.)

I process mustard for 20 minutes at a rolling boil. By the end of the evening, all 25 pints were processed.

And Don has plenty of mustard to last a long time.

Don ran out of mustard the other day.

He's a sandwich guy and goes through a fair bit of it. For that reason I usually buy it in bulk. However since neither of us wanted a big honkin' container of mustard taking up room in the fridge, I knew it was time to re-can it into smaller jars.

I started by dumping all the mustard in a big pot. Re-canning is best done with a hot pack, so I needed to heat it up.

And heating it up, I learned the hard way years ago, should be done in a double boiler so the bottom doesn't scorch. At first I put the pots on the cookstove, but it was too warm to keep the cookstove going and we let the fire die out.

So most of the heating was done on the propane stove.

While the mustard was heating, I washed and drained the plastic jugs. Don uses them in the shop to hold miscellaneous nuts and bolts.

I also held back two quarts of unprocessed mustard to just keep in the fridge. No sense canning what will get used up right away.

I kept the heat low and stirred the mustard every so often, bringing the warmer stuff up from the bottom.

When the mustard was hot enough, I ladled it into pint jars.

Just about ready to process.

Scalding the lids. It's nice to have all my canning supplies back within easy reach. For too long things had been scattered in distant locations.

Into the water bath. (Ignore the old labels on the lids from previous uses.) Mustard is high-acid, so it can be safely water-bath canned for 20 minutes at a rolling boil.

When they jars were processed, I removed them from the water. One vomited out quite a bit of mustard. Hey, not every canning project turns out Instagram-perfect. (Surprisingly, this jar actually sealed.)

I let the jars cool overnight before dating them and putting them in the pantry. Now Don has enough mustard at least for the next year or so.

I like to buy certain items in bulk (primarily mustard, pizza sauce, and salsa) and then re-can them. This allows me to take advantage of the lower per-unit cost without letting the food going to waste because the containers are so big.


Last week it was time to re-can more mustard. I started with three large jugs.

First thing to do is heat it up in order to hot-pack it. I use two big pots nested together and make a double-boiler out of them. I do this because the first time I heated up a lot of mustard to re-can, it burned a bit on the bottom and gave the whole batch a slightly burned taste. A double-boiler arrangement eliminates that problem.


Once it's hot, I ladle it into jars.


By scraping everything out...


...I was able to fill nineteen pints jars from those three large jugs.


Wiping the rims.


Because mustard is acidic and has no other low-acid ingredients, it can be canned in a water bath. Here I was able to fit 17 out of the 19 jars into two pots. At a rolling boil, pints are processed for 20 minutes.


Here are the two jars left over, being processed. Notice how I don't bother removing the tape (identifying the former contents) from the lids I re-used from other canning projects. I'll do that later.


Finished. Now I'll let the jars cool before removing the rings, checking the seal, labeling, and storing.

Today I canned mustard. Or to be more accurate, I RE-canned mustard.

If you remember, I like to buy things in bulk whenever possible. That includes condiments. Trouble is, I don't like big honkin' containers of condiments taking up refrigerator space. So whenever possible, I re-can things into smaller jars.

Last year I tried this with mustard and it was such a success that I knew I would do it again. We just finished up the last of the re-canned mustard yesterday, so today I canned three large jugs of mustard.


Three jugs at 105 ounces of mustard each equals 315 ounces, divided by 16 ounces (for a pint jar) equals a bit under 20 pints of mustard. So I washed 20 pint jars.

Last year when I heated the mustard up in a pot, the very bottom layer got burned despite my stirring. The burned taste carried over into the canned mustard. It wasn't bad, but it was there, so this time I used a double-boiler system to avoid burning the mustard.


Filling clean jars with hot mustard.


Twenty pints, just as I calced.


Naturally I used my beloved Tattler reusable canning lids.


Into the canner. Mustard is acidic enough that it can be water-bath canned.


I only have room on my stove for two oversized pots which held a total of 16 jars, so four jars had to go into the canner during a second round. (I managed to break one of the jars, so I ended up with 19 finished pints.)



The mustard is processed for 20 minutes at a rolling boil.

I find this to be a very economical alternative to buying the little bottles of mustard bought at the grocery store. Of course it helps to have lids and jars already in stock!

We usually buy items in bulk at Cash 'n Carry or Costco. That includes things like mustard and mayonnaise.

A couple months ago I had bought a couple of large jugs of mustard at Costco and opened one of them, which of course is now in the fridge. My husband, not realizing I'd already opened a jug, opened the second...which must now be refrigerated as well. With the milk I'm getting from our cow, fridge space is at a premium and I had these two big jugs taking up room.



So I decided to try canning mustard. What the heck, it never hurts to try, right?

I poured all the mustard into a pot and heated it up.



I spooned it into squat pint jars...



I put them in two layers in a boil-bath canner for 20 minutes.



As far as I can see, they turned out fine.



I labeled and dated them and stored them away (I left one pint uncanned in the fridge for immediate use). When it comes time to opened one of the canned jars of mustard, and assuming it tastes okay, I'll buy up several gallons of mustard and re-can them. I like having condiments canned up in small jars.