I love it when I can stack functions on my homesteading projects and get more yields! I turned my tomatoes into seeds, tomato sauce and tomato wine.

I haven't posted in a while. I took a break when the HF20 was going on and then just stayed on break after that. It was a good chance to make some progress on personal projects. But I miss steemit and I have been wanting to make this post for a while.

Saving tomato seeds is easy and surprisingly satisfying!

I am working on a tomato seed contract for a local seed company. They gave me seed to start with and will pay me for the seed I grow out and return to them, by weight.

One nice thing about saving tomato seeds is that most tomatoes are inbreeders. This means that they don't need any other tomato plants around them to cross pollinate and we don't need to save seeds from many plants in order to avoid inbreeding depression. Its hard to go wrong with that.

To save tomato seed the first step is to grab a tomato and SQUEEZE!

Well - just make sure you're squeezing over a container (cup, bowl, yogurt container are all great) to catch the seedy pulp from inside the tomato. It takes a tomato or two to get the rythm.. but there's not really much else to it!

Squeezing tomatoes brings me back to my boyhood days. Crushing a soft fruit in my hand, that juice squirting through my fingers, seeds spraying out and getting on my shirt, arms and shoes. Is this work or play? I am not quite sure :)

The only other thing I should mention in case its not a given is make sure to cut any rotton or moldy parts of the tomato before you squeeze it.

When I squeeze the seeds out of a tomato into my container I throw the tomato meat into a pot.

When the pot is full of meat I take it into the kitchen to process shortly!

Fermenting the Tomato Seed

Meanwhile I finished my squeezing and now I have the seeds and juice to deal with. The prescribed formula is ferment the seeds in their juice for 3 days or so.

Fermentation helps dissolve and loosen the small amounts of pulp around the seeds so that we can have clean seeds with less chance of pulp that will rot.

Fermenting the seeds is as simple as just covering the container that is holding the tomato seeds and juice and stir at least once a day to prevent mold from building on the surface. (I found that some tomato varieties mold easier than others and in warmer environments stirring more than once a day might be better)

If you're saving seeds from more than one type of tomato make sure to label each container!

OK.. that's going to sit for three days let's move on to the sauce.

Back in the kitchen

My pots are filled and ready to cook!

I get them up to a boil and then reduce the heat so that they are simmering pretty good and reduce the tomatoes down. When it starts to thicken stirring and lowering the heat is critical to avoid burning.

Simmering down to about 1/2 the volume yields a nice thickness!

Notice: no seeds ;)

When I am happy with the thickness my next trick is blending the sauce with my immersion blender which blends the skin and all. Now you know why I didn't bother chopping up my squeezed tomatoes.

Taking a break

Simmering down tomato sauce can take a while. I typically don't end up canning it the same day. Sometimes I get the simmering started the first day, finish the sauce the 2nd day and can it the third day. I just leave the sauce on the cool floor meanwhile. Sometimes I am ambitious and do it all in one day, usually that's not the case ;) Sometimes I don't even start cooking the sauce the first day and just let the tomatoes sit in the pot and ferment a bit and cook them the next day. As long as I am not leaving it too long to rot, it's all good - considering I am boiling out the bacteria anyway and bringing to a boil before canning again.

Canning the sauce

I should also note that I don't blend the sauce until right before I can it and am ready to take the pot off the heat, because if I keep simmering the blended sauce it is so thick that it starts sputtering and splattering.

I carefully ladle the boiling sauce into mason jars and steam (not pressure) can the sauce. I noticed that unlike jams my sauce sometimes overboils out of the mason jar a little bit and prevents sealing - my rings may also be a little too loose. So I learned not to fill my jars with tomato sauce as full as I fill my jam.

I almost can't wait for winter to enjoy this sauce in chilis and pastas!

Pouring the juice off the tomatoes

Now that the sauce is done and three days have gone by since I squeezed my tomatoes the seeds have fermented in tomato juice long enough. Notice the seeds have sunk to the bottom of the jar! This is critical for the next step.

I tasted the fermented tomato juice and it was quite good!! I had a split second thought that I would pour myself a cup of fermented tomato juice and put the rest in the fridge to enjoy over a few days.

but then I realized that it would make great wine! OK let's save this deliciousness.

I pour it out over a strainer to remove some of the pulp and chunks from the juice. Careful! Don't pour out the seeds!

The strained pulp can be saved for going into a pot of chili or stew.

The seeds are still surrounded with juice and a little pulp. What we do is fill the jar with water and pour off the water/juice mix until it runs clean and clear. This is about 4-5 fillings for me.

Every time I pour the water out it gets clearer and clearer. I am careful not to pour out the seeds with the water. They sink to the bottom which is quite helpful. Some of the smaller or less viable seeds will float, so I don't mind that those floaters get poured out because the seed I am left with will have a higher germination rate.

Drying the Seeds

Now that the seeds are clean of juice, pulp, and floating seeds they can be dried. I spread them out on screens.

For an extra cleaning step I spray over the seeds on the screen with a sprayer to help clear any last juice and debris through the screen.

Then the screen is left to dry for about a week. If there is not much airflow I find that a fan helps speed up the drying the first few hours.

Tomato wine primary fermentation

The seeds were my primary objective and now that they are drying I can get my wine going! My juice is already wild fermented for 3 days but I want to bump it up a notch and have a stronger alcohol so I add some sugar and yeast to get it really going.

I grab some of my blackberry wine which in its primary fermentation to introduce yeast to the tomato wine.

Not too long after that I can see some strong action in the tomato juice.

But that's nothing compared to the next day!

I let the primary fermentation brew for about 7-10 days until it starts slowing down. Every day if I can think of it I skim off some of the foamy stuff.

Tomato seeds are dry!

Once the seeds are dry I scoop them up and store them in a dry place.

Sun Dried Tomatoes - The easy way to save tomato seeds

Now that I told you all about that fermenting, pouring, spraying, drying I'll reward you for following me all the way down this far in the post ;)

Here's the easy way to save tomato seeds. And this is also stacking functions with more than one yield.

I like using cherry tomatoes for my sun dried tomatoes but you can use any tomatoes.

Oh man I love sun dried tomatoes! They are so tasty. I have a few gallons dried now and ready to start enjoying once the fresh tomatoes run out, which won't be long now that frosts are starting to set in.

And look at all those seeds in the tomatoes! Many of these seeds will be perfectly viable in a few months when its time to start next years tomato plants.

One caveat: Those seeds will be ready for you if you don't eat them all first!

Also, if you are planting a lot of tomatoes it can be a pain to separate out seeds but for just a few its not a big deal. Also you would have to keep your dried tomatoes separated by variety.

Secondary Fermentation of the Tomato Wine

About 10 days have passed and the primary tomato wine fermentation is slowing down so I am pouring it into my jug to slowly ferment without oxygen present.

I leave some extra room at the top of the jug in case the introduction of oxygen from pouring in the wine jumpstarts a very bubbly ferment again. I had more that didn't fit and so I saved it in a mason jar because its not big enough for another jug. The idea is when I rack the wine there will be a lot of sediment at the bottom that I will rack off and then I'll have more room for the wine in the mason jar.

Hard work is done, enjoy some wine!

My tomato wine takes its place next to my other wines. Since taking this photo I have 2 more jugs of tomato wine and one more fermenting right now which will make a fourth jug!

So far 3 out of 4 that have tasted the fermenting wine have enjoyed it... I know it sounds weird right? But I like it ;) I am curious how it will turn out after a year.

Thanks for following along for my tomato adventures :)

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