can i make chutney in two stages

[kally]

day 1 make chutney
day 2 reheat and can?

[loosechickens]

don't see why not....how does the chutney know whether it's freshly made and hot, or reheated and hot? Plus, who cares what chutney thinks...... ;-) Reheated and into the jars it goes........

[Amaranth]

If you make the chutney one day, it will start to spoil slightly as it cools down and sits in the fridge and then a bit more as it heats back up. Then when you can it, you would seal in that spoilage. Depending on the particular bacteria, etc that is in there, canning may or may not get rid of it under those circumstances. The certified safe canning recipes are tested under conditions going straight from cooking to canning.

For tested recipes a good resource is
The National Center for Home Food Preservation
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/

[loosechickens]

o.k., even if bacteria began to grow in it because it didn't cool down quickly enough in the fridge, which I doubt, when you brought it back to a boil, any bacteria would be killed in the reheating and then canning process. Besides, chutney is usually fruit, which is acidic, sugar which retards bacteria growth and vinegar, etc., more acid, so it's not like letting meat cool slowly, etc. Honestly, I'd have no compunctions about doing it......although I'd agree with Amaranth's reasoning were you talking about canning venison or very low acid vegetables, etc.

Obviously, the BEST way to do it, or any other food you're canning, would be to do it all at once, but if you HAD to do it over two days, I'd think that something like chutney would be an excellent candidate for that. JMHO, and I've canned many, many thousands of jars of food over the years, and was always quite a picky canner.