Making Passata/Tomato sauce

[HBHB]

So its the time of year when people go buy (or grow) a tonne of tomatos and turn them into tomato passato/sauce.

My wife and I have done this the past few years but this year mum and dad and some other friends want to join in. But I'm concerned that the old hand crank machine we use will be a pain in the arse for 150ish kgs of tomatos so I'm looking for an electric machine.
I think I want a Reber (available from foodquip/winequip). They seem to be the most common. But what size? I also plan on getting the mincer attachment.
At this stage I'm thinking the either the 1hp or the 1.5hp unit (I'm a little bit tim the tool man and more power is better than less) and the N.22 mincer. I really think 1hp is the minimum.

Has any one got one of these and do you have any of the other attachments (dough mixer, pasta extruder, cheese grater)

Go the larger one. You'll not be sorry when doing a big day and smashing a dozen boxes of tomatoes. The small unit will do it, but the bigger one will do it in style.

 

[robzilla]

Hey guys - prepping my Passata weekend. As per last year, one batch with my folks, the following weekend with friends.

Has anyone found a decent Marzano supplier here in Melbourne? Last year we used Romas?

 

[HBHB]

Be worth while to check the farmers markets

 

[Richo12]

So just finished making our homemade tomato sauce for this year.

35 cases of tomatoes (560kg aprox)
Time taken :12hours
245 Litres of tomatoe sauce made

We use a Reber 1hp tomato mincing machine and this time round had problems with our machine. The tomato skin would line the inside of the cone causing our machine to clog up. This slowed our process as we had to continuously stop the machine, dismantle it and clean out the cone. (Very frustrating) Has anyone else had this same problem?

This is our process

1. Wash tomatoes
2. Cook Tomatoes in a large pot. Remove when they start to boil
3. Put tomatoes through the mincing machine and re pass tomato skins
4. Put basil leaves into empty bottles
5. Add salt to tomato sauce and stir
6. Fill empty bottles and cap
7. Place full bottles into 44 Gallon drum and fill drum with water
8. Bring 44 gallon drum to the boil

 

[Eagleburger]

So just finished making our homemade tomato sauce for this year.

35 cases of tomatoes (560kg aprox)
Time taken :12hours
245 Litres of tomatoe sauce made

Thats pretty serious.

 

[RobB]

35 cases of tomatoes (560kg aprox)
Time taken :12hours
245 Litres of tomatoe sauce made

Impressive. And I thought our 350kg tomato day was hard core. Your process looks very similar to ours, but I can't think why your machine would be clogging.

 

[Tahoose]

Pretty much what we do except we wait until the tomatoes start to spilt.

Impressive quantity I thought 132ltrs of sauce was big...

 

[HBHB]

Sounds like the skins may not have been soft enough like Tahoose said. We used to drop them into a boiling 1/2 44 gal drum in half case lots and once they started to split, lift them out with an old tank sieve. Used to have to clear the machine every now and then, but not often.

Hope it was a good day.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Noticed tomatoes yesterday at $1.00 / Kilo in Springvale for a 10kg box.

 

[pat_00]

I made beer, tomato beer!

Seems I didn't boil for long enough. I bottled the pulp fresh without boiling and then after bottling I boiled for 2 hours.

Lucky it was only a small test batch though and have lost 12 bottles, still annoying though.

Now I have to hunt down a few more boxes and try again. Hopefully they are still out there.

 

[Paul Knox]

Hi Guys
New to this Forum and eager to learn
Just wondering would it be to late to spend a day with the family making sauce
Also where would be the best place to buy all the equiptment
Im a newb but willing to learn
Thanks guys
Paul

 

[Steve Austcure]

anyone making sauce this year
any tricks of the trade that you know?

 

[komodo]

My wife and I did 100kg and got 64 X 720ml passata bottles out of that.

I have exactly ZERO regrets about spending the buggs bunny on the 1.5hp/1200watt reber it makes light work of it. We started our day at 1pm and we were finished by 10pm

Last time we made passata was 2014 when we did 200kg. We still have a hand full of bottles left. This time we reduced it a lot more as when we did the 200kg I didn't have enough kettle space and time to reduce it enough so we ended up with heaps of bottles but they were watery.

 

[komodo]

I'm just trying to find out if I can get the different sieves locally. The standard sieve is 1.5mm apatures but they have a sieve with 1.1mm apatures and another with 2.5mm apatures. I think I want to try the coarser 2.5mm sieve.
We had no issues with the sieve clogging this year but we have had that issue before. No idea what causes it.

 

[Steve Austcure]

Did you do the tomatoes raw, blanched or cooked

be nice to know if the method type makes a difference

my mate uses a FLB machine and swears by it

electric beats manual any day

:chug:

 

[Feldon]

[SIZE=medium]Is this good value at $30 for a 10kg box (minimum order) of organic tomatoes?[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Seems like a good idea.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Same idea could be used for bulk buys of hops, malted grain, no?[/SIZE]



[SIZE=medium]'Crowdsaucing' effort to bottle five tonnes of organic tomatoes[/SIZE]

774 ABC Melbourne By Simon Leo Brown

[SIZE=medium]Five tonnes of organic tomatoes are being trucked to Melbourne as part of a push for the public to bottle their own passata.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Organic grocer CERES Fair Food is coordinating the effort, which it has dubbed "crowdsaucing".[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Organiser Monique Miller said the campaign was born from the social enterprise's inability to sell local organic tinned tomatoes.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]"Even we, who are an organic grocer, don't and can't stock organic canned Australian tomatoes — they just don't exist," Ms Miller told 774 ABC Melbourne's Rafael Epstein. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]"There's one cannery left in Australia now and the growers that grow for them are all conventional farmers."[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Profits go to environment park[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]CERES Fair Food has nominated April 30 as Crowdsaucing Day and is encouraging people to organise public or private tomato bottling events on that day.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]The group has set up a website, crowdsaucing.org.au, where people can register to take part and purchase tomatoes.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]"We have contracted a farmer to grow five tonnes of organic tomatoes for us," Ms Miller said. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]The tomatoes will be delivered to registered events by CERES Fair Food, which funnels all its profits to the CERES Environment Park.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]CERES, which stands for Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies, is a 10-acre not-for-profit park and education centre built on a decommissioned tip in Brunswick East. (continues...)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-14/crowdsaucing-to-bottle-five-tonnes-of-organic-tomatoes/7325498[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]And a link to the Crowdsaucing website: [/SIZE][SIZE=medium]http://www.ceresfairfood.org.au/crowdsaucing/[/SIZE]

 

[professional_drunk]

$30 to make 8 bottles of passata is really expensive.
May as well buy it already made https://members.ceresfairfood.org.au/products/579

 

[komodo]

Almost time again...

​Who's doing Passata this year?
​We might be giving it a miss this year unfortunately

 

[pat_00]

I'll be having my first real try at passata this year.

Totally economically stupid, but then so is a lot of things I do.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

I have an abundance of tomatoes and have been thinking of making some, do I have to peel all the tomatoes first?
I tried my hand at ketchup last year but it came out more like H.P, though not complaining