Red
Makes about 9 - 10 pints

Ingredients:

• 9 quarts of Applesauce, fresh or canned
• 2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon of allspice
• 4 cups sugar, Splenda or frozen concentrated grape juice.

Directions:

Fill the crock pot to within an inch of full with applesauce. You will add the remaining applesauce later. Add the cinnamon, cloves, allspice and 2 cups of the sugar (the other 2 cups of sugar are added later).

Set the crock pot on low or medium heat. Cover it loosely or use a large pot splatter-guard. (I prefer a splatter-gaurd) It will spatter as it boils slowly, so I place a large towel under the cooker to protect my counter. You don't want to seal it tightly with a lid because you want the steam to escape so it can reduce in volume and thicken.


Leave it to cook for 6 - 12 hours (my Crockpot is quite large so mine cooks about 12 to 16 hours). I set mine to cook overnight, so I could finish it the next day. It will reduce in volume by about half overnight.
After it cooks down by about half, add the remaining applesauce and 2 more cups of sugar. Then let it cook a couple of hours more.

Here it is pre-canning process.

Sanitize your canning jars, heat your lids, and keep jars hot.

If you have a hand held blender, at this time you could mix the simmering sauce a bit to make it have a finer consistency.

Turn the crock pot to high to get the sauce boiling hot. It takes mine about 20 minutes and I stir frequently, it gets it boiling. But be careful not to burn the bottom of the sauce.

Fill the jars to within 1/4 -inch of the top, wipe any spilled apple butter of the top, seat the lid and tighten the lids.

Process them in a canner covered with at least 1 inch of boiling water.
Depending on Sea level:
up to 1,000 ft - boil pint jars for 5 minutes and quart jars for 10 min.
1,000 to 6000 ft - boil pints for 10 min and quarts for 15 min.
Above 6000 ft boil pints for 15 min and quarts for 20 min.
Unsure? No problem! there is no harm in using one of the longer times.

Lift the jars out of the water and let them cool without touching or bumping them. Once the jars are cool, you can check that they are sealed verifying that the lid has been sucked down. Just press in the center, gently, with your finger. If it pops up and down, it is not sealed. If it doesn't seal, refrigerate and use quickly.

Notes: I made mine this time with fresh no sugar added apple sauce and about 2 cups of sugar since the apples where so naturally sweet.

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