Canning Pumpkin Question

At the end of fall in 2011, I canned some pumpkin and have what may be a problem with it. There has been some discoloration which I can't decide is actual spoilage or something home canned pumpkin does. Because I'm unsure, I'm tossing it.

It's seeming to come from one particular pumpkin - I only had two, but I'm not sure. I may have been sloppy with one pumpkin and took too long to get it from the roasting into the jars. That and the fact that I've never done pumpkin before is why I'm so unsure about this.

I'm really hoping someone that reads the blog will know something about this and can give me some information on it. Please, if you've canned pumpkin before or seen this let me know what you understand about it.

Following is a picture of the discoloration. It's a bright orange that seems to develop around where the pumpkin has bubbled during processing.

Pumpkin Canning Finished for 2011

Okay. The canning of pumpkin for 2011 was finally finished a couple of weeks ago. Yay! All in all, I got 4 jelly jars of seeds, both roasted and brined, 15 pints of pumpkin puree for pies or bread, 7 jelly jars of pumpkin butter, and enough puree for 2 pumpkin pies to bake tomorrow from two pumpkins.

One of the pumpkins was a monster pumpkin that Uncle Charles gave me (Thank You!) , and one was a regular-sized one that I rescued from shooting practice from the neighbors across the street. "No! Stop! Don't shoot that pumpkin!" They had 5 or 6 so didn't mind me saving one from an explosive death.

It took me quite a few days to get through the process of cutting, seeding, baking, skinning and pureeing (is that a word?) both of the pumpkins. It took hammering the knife with the meat pounding mallet to get through the monster pumpkin. On the right is the pan of the cooked pumpkin.

Max talked about his mother cooking their on the stove when he was young. I wanted to try a method of removing the seeds and baking the pumpkin before removing the skin so that skinning wouldn't be so difficult.

The monster pumpkin was so large, I could only bake 1/2 of it at a time. Each bake took almost 2 hours. The normal pumpkin fit in the oven in one baking. So all in all it took 6 hours to bake the pumpkin. However, I didn't have to try to scoop raw pumpkin away from the skin. Skinning was very easy after the baking was done. I could also do other things while the baking was going on.

After the quarters or halves were baked, I easily skinned the pumpkin meat and then pureed the meat in a food processor. Note for simmering the puree:  Use a deep pan; this stuff spatters like its only purpose in life is to burn you. It took a few days to get the puree canned, the butter recipe figured out and canned, and the seeds done. Remember that there were other things going on - plumping repairs, Mother care and old age, sigh.

The recipe I used was adapted from one I found on the internet; however, it was changed extensively. Perhaps my pumpkin butter doesn't taste like the "real" stuff, but it sure is good.



Pumpkin Butter


3 cps pumpkin puree
3/4 cp Tampico Citrus Punch (orange juice type liquid)
1 cp sugar
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
pinch of powdered cloves (to taste)
pinch of cinnamon (to taste)

Combine all ingredients in saucepan and simmer until thickened.