Water bath canning times from the tested NCHFP tables, adjusted for your altitude: jam, fruit, tomatoes and pickles in half-pint, pint or quart jars, with the acid, jar and water-depth rules.
Canning Time Calculator - Water Bath Times by Altitude
Water bath canning times from the tested NCHFP tables, adjusted for your altitude: jam, fruit, tomatoes and pickles in half-pint, pint or quart jars, with the acid, jar and water-depth rules.
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Water bath canning times for your jar and your altitude
Pick the food, the pack, the jar size and type your altitude: the canning time calculator returns the minutes in a boiling-water canner from the tested NCHFP tables, the water depth over the jars, and the extra step the recipe needs, such as acid for tomatoes or sterile jars for a short process. For vegetables and meat it gives no time on purpose.
Four answers the time depends on
- Food - 17 fruits, jams, tomato products and pickles with a tested boiling-water time, plus one entry for low-acid foods that have none.
- Pack - hot (food heated, then packed) or raw (packed cold, covered with hot liquid), only where the recipe allows both.
- Jar size - half-pint, pint or quart. Half-pints use the pint time.
- Altitude - in feet or meters. Above 1,000 ft every time gets longer.
Two more questions appear only when they matter: whether the empty jars were sterilized (jam and pickled peppers) and how you plan to process the jars.
The jar sealed. Is that enough?
The problem. A popped lid only says air was pushed out. It does not say the jar was heated long enough. NCHFP times differ by food, pack and jar size, and NCHFP warns that food may spoil when no time is added for the cooler boil above 1,000 ft.
The fix. Use the tested time for exactly that food, pack, jar and altitude band, count only from a full rolling boil, and start over if the boil stops. Those three rules are what the result repeats every time.
Altitude bands, read off the tables
Minutes in a boiling-water canner for a few common jars. Most fruit tables add 5 minutes per band; some add nothing between 1,001 and 6,000 ft because NCHFP tested that as one band.
| Food and jar | 0-1,000 ft | 1,001-3,000 | 3,001-6,000 | above 6,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| jam, half-pints or pints | 5 | 10 | 10 | 15 |
| applesauce, quarts | 20 | 25 | 30 | 35 |
| peaches raw pack, quarts | 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 |
| quick dill pickles, quarts | 15 | 20 | 20 | 25 |
| crushed tomatoes, quarts | 45 | 50 | 55 | 60 |
| raw tomatoes, no added liquid | 85 | 90 | 95 | 100 |
The spread is wide. A half-pint of jam needs 5 minutes at the coast; raw-packed tomatoes with no liquid need 85. Picking the right row matters more than any rounding.
What the result adds, and when
Each line below is a decision the calculator makes for you from the same NCHFP pages.
| If | Then |
|---|---|
| the time is over 30 minutes | water at least 2 inches over the jars instead of 1 |
| jam or pickled peppers, process under 10 minutes | sterile jars: boil them 10 minutes plus 1 per extra 1,000 ft; with unsterilized jars the time is raised to 10 |
| any tomato product | per pint 1 tbsp bottled lemon juice or 1/4 tsp citric acid; per quart 2 tbsp or 1/2 tsp |
| a pickle | the time holds for the tested brine with 5% vinegar, not a weaker one |
| a jar larger than a quart, or a quart of jam | no time: no tested process exists |
| vegetables, meat, beans, soup, stock | no time: low-acid, pressure canner only |
Three kitchens, three results
Strawberry jam at sea level, unsterilized half-pints. The table says 5 minutes, but anything under 10 needs sterile jars. The result raises it to 10 minutes, or keeps 5 if you boil the empty jars 10 minutes first.
Crushed tomatoes in Denver, about 5,300 ft, quarts. 55 minutes, 2 tbsp bottled lemon juice in each jar, 2 inches of water over the lids.
Green beans from the garden. No minutes at all. The calculator points to a pressure canner, because a boiling-water bath has no tested time for plain vegetables.
Water bath questions
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