I figured if anyone could answer this question, it would be someone in here...
We recently discovered a store that sells giant containers of all sorts of food products (5 gallon bucket of mayo, anyone?) My question is, can we get one of those big cans of sliced carrots and re-can them in mason jars of a more reasonable size?
The Blue Book says to can carrots for 25 minutes, but that is for fresh. Would the pre-canned product have to go so long to be safe?
Yes, you absolutely can. I have done it. They WILL get more mushy and overprocessed, having already been through it once, but as long as you do everything as sterile as you can, and PRESSURE CAN them for as long as you would if it were fresh. Even if it's something that could have been water bathed when it was fresh PRESSURE CAN IT. DO NOT WATER BATH IT.
I agree with Pearl, if you can into smaller jars, there is a good chance that they will be rather mush like when opened later on. We have re-processed jars that did not seal on the first time around. It was green beans and they were very soft, we used them in soups and stews.
It can be done, I would suggest that you dry the excess for long term storage. If you don't have a dehydrator you can use your oven at a very low setting.