Crockpot Applebutter

Directions for Making Apple Butter
Yields about 9 - 10 pints
Ingredients and Equipment
•    9 quarts of Applesauce, fresh or canned (See step 1)
•    2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon
•    1 teaspoon ground cloves
•    1/2 teaspoon of allspice
•    4 cups sugar or Splenda, or an equivalent amount of sweetness to taste, from honey, stevia or frozen concentrated apple or white grape juice.
________________________________________
Apple Butter Recipe and Directions
Step 1 - Make unsweetened applesauce!
That's right, apple butter starts with applesauce!  You can use store bought applesauce, but the apple butter won't taste nearly as good.  It's better with your own applesauce (either previously canned or fresh made).  So if you haven't made some applesauce yet start here with how to make applesauce.
Cook the Apples
Pretty simple put about 1 inch of water (I used either filtered tap water or store brand apple juice) on the bottom of a huge, thick-bottomed pot. Put the lid on, and the heat on high.  When it gets really going, turn it to medium high until the apples are soft through and through.

 Fill the crock pot to within an inch of full with applesauce, mine takes about 5.5 quarts. You will add the remaining applesauce later, in step 5. Now, you CAN do this using a regular large pot on very low heat on the stove, but the crockpot works much better, because its heat is very low. I've never had a batch burn in the crockpot.
Step 3 -Add the spices
Add:
•    2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon
•    1 teaspoon ground cloves
•    1/2 teaspoon of allspice
•    2 cups sugar (the other 2 cups are used in step 4)
In place of sugar, you can use an equivalent amount of Splenda (sucralose) OR 1 twelve ounce can of frozen concentrated fruit juice (preferably a neutral juice, like white grape or apple).  You could use honey or Stevia, also. The sweetener is present ONLY for your taste, not as a preservative, so you can use anything that is heat-stable, in quantities that suit your own tastes.
 You can skip the sweeteners entirely, too; but it loses a lot of the richness of flavor, in my opinion. 95% of folks seem to like using a total of 4 cups of sugar.  Some folks prefer 3 cups of honey instead, and diabetics obviously like Splenda or Stevia.
Step 4 - Cook down the Apple butter
Set the crock pot on low or medium heat. 
Cover it loosely or use a large pot splatter-guard. It will spatter as it boils slowly, so I also cover nearby surfaces with towels.  You don't want to seal it tightly because you want the steam to escape so it can reduce in volume and thicken. A visitor suggests, take a couple of butter knives, and lay them across the top of the crock pot. They are parallel and located about 2/3 of the way out from the center. Then put the lid on these supports, leaving it "covering" the pot and keeping the splatters under control, but, leaving a good gap for steam to escape.  I just made a batch and tried this approach, but I used a pair of wooden chopsticks or bamboo kebab skewers - they worked great!
Leave it to cook for 6 - 18 hours.   How long depends on the size and power of your crockpot, and how thick you like it, If you want to stir it occasionally, that's fine but not necessary.  I start mine around 8 pm on high for 1 hour, then on medium until I am ready for bed around midnight, then leave it on low overnight.
But do be careful: if your crockpot does not heat evenly, and has hot spots; you can get localized burning.  So once in a while, use a rubber or silicon spatula to scrape the sides and look for any burned apple butter.  If it does burn: pour the apple butter out of the crockpot into a bowl. The burned apple butter will cling to the crockpot.  Clean the crockpot, discard the burned bits and pour the unburned apple butter back in!
Step 5 - Add the remaining applesauce
It will reduce in volume by about half overnight. As it cooks down (the next morning), add the remaining applesauce (about 2 or 3 quarts) . Then let it cook a couple of  hours.
Step 7 - Blend the apple butter (optional)
You want a smooth, creamy texture, right? The easiest way is to use a hand-held drink blender. It does a great job of making it smooth.  You can also put it into a regular blender, but if you are going to do that, you might want to blend the apple sauce before you put it in the crock pot (it will be much thicker afterwards and won't move in a regular blender). Another visitor says running it through a food mill with a fine screen or through a sieve works, too.
Tips:
•    Too thick?  if the apple butter cooks down too much or is too thick for your liking, just add a little bit of apple juice and blend it in.
•    Not thick enough? Just let it cook some more, with the lid off so the steam can escape!
Step 8 - Fill and seal the jars
If the crockpot isn't keeping the apple butter boiling hot, you will need to briefly return the butter to the stove to get it hotter.  It varies from crockpot to crockpot.  I find that if I set my crockpot on high for the 15 minutes before I fill the jars and stir frequently, it gets it boiling.
Fill the jars to within ¼-inch of the top, wipe any spilled apple butter of the top, seat the lid and tighten the ring around them. 
Step 9 – Process the jars
Process means put them in the canner and keep them covered with at least 1 inch of water and boiling. if you are at sea level (up to 1,000 ft) boil pint jars for 5 minutes and quart jars for 10 min. If you are at an altitude of 1,000 feet or more, see the chart below. Even though these times are right from the USDA, I usually tend to err on the side of safety and let mine go for 15 minutes; there's no harm in going longer.
Recommended process time for Apple Butter in a boiling-water canner.
Jar Size     Process Time at Altitudes of
     0 - 1,000 ft    1,001 - 6,000 ft    Above 6,000 ft
Half-pints or Pints    5 min    10    15
Quarts    10    15    20
Step 10 - Done
Lift the jars out of the water and let them cool without touching or bumping them in a draft-free place (usually takes overnight)  You can then remove the rings if you like. Once the jars are cool, you can check that they are sealed verifying that the lid has been sucked down. Just press in the center, gently, with your finger. If it pops up and down (often making a popping sound), it is not sealed. If you put the jar in the refrigerator right away, you can still use it. Some people replace the lid and reprocess the jar, then that's a bit iffy. If you heat the contents back up, re-jar them (with a new lid) and the full time in the canner, it's usually ok.