Canned Nerd

You are making 'Bump' right now??

I love my seasoning.

The lemon juice is still required whether you use a water bath recipe or a pressure canner recipe.

You also have the FoodSaver canisters of all shapes and sizes that you can use instead of the Mason jars.

The Sure-Jell is a powdered pectin so you can use the Ball® brand of powdered pectin. You cannot use the liquid pectin in a recipe using powdered since they are not used the same way.

Ball® has a new stainless steel water bath canner that works on all stove tops, but it is on the pricey side because it is stainless. Check it out here: Ball Stainless Steel Water Bath Canner

When I have excess I slice thin, put my favorite seasonings on it, and dehydrate into snack chips.

Thanks. I never noticed that. Now I'm curious to get one for smaller runs.

I always thought the smallest canner they had was the 23 Qt that holds 7 quart jars. 16 Qt is pretty small. Does the rocker weight come in 3 pieces for different pressures?

Anything underground by several feet will be cooler than outside and will generally be somewhat constant in the temperature, thus the root cellar. In my grandmother and great grandmother's days, cooling was done by ice, delivered everyday by the iceman. The block of ice or two was put in an "ice box" which helped keep the food cool. Same as putting ice in a picnic ice chest. Another method was "evaporation cooling" which is a little more complicated and is often used in the wilderness. My grandparents hawked their souls just about to get their first refrigerator. Had a coil on the top and stood on legs. My dog used to sleep under it. My grandmother never looked back fondly at the pre-refrigerator years.

Root Beer Jelly is actually one of the good ones. ANY juice can be made in to a Jelly, just like you make jellies from canned fruit juices. Use the Ball Blue Book recipe for quick grape jelly (pg 37).

I did that once, actually more than once, and I found out the mixes were still sitting on the friend's pantry shelf over 6 months later. "Oh, I never got around to making it." I've learned not to give Christmas gifts of homemade items/mixes unless you "really" know the person will use them since most don't.

You can use the larger 2-quart jars, but only in a Boiling Water Canner and limited to very acidic juices such as apple and grape juice. Nothing else. Using 2-Quart Canning Jars

I don't think there is any place that sells them both together. You would need to order the rocker weight online separately. I believe Violet provided the link somewhere here.

I actually think having the rings on could potentially cause pressure on the flats and cause them to fail. If jars are to be stacked I use a spacer of cardboard that spreads the weight over all the jars. This is just my personal recommendation from experience. I'm quite sure that if the rings were kept loose, away from the flats, the possibly of problems would be minimal so I guess it becomes a personal decision.

Take the rings off and leave them off. There is no purpose for them once the flats have sealed properly. Clean and dry the rings and put them away until your next canning job. After awhile you may accumulate a lot of rings. The only time I have a need for rings, except during canning, is when I give jars away. I put a ring back on (loosely) so they can have a sealed lid when the jar is opened. At home I use the Ball plastic lids when a jar is opened.

You don't need to worry that much about your mashed taters. The C. Botulinum spore doesn't grow its toxin in the normal environment that much and normal cooking kills any active toxin. The safety concern is in that sealed jar where the spore loves the airless environment. The thickness of the skin can harbor bacterias that might not be completely washed/brushed off and the C. Botulinum spore is especially nasty in resisting the heat of a canner and is a spore did survive in an 'eye' or just under the skin, well, no fun. The chances are rare, but it is a chance, so is is just a safety recommendation so we stay healthy.

I jumped my car once and blew out the electronics (circuit board). Nice expensive bill. I will call AAA now.

For a Boiling Water Canner that is true, as long as you have some form of rack to set the jars on and there is sufficient height above the jars for a rolling boil. The only advantage of an "official" BWC is in the lid that is curved differently that prevents a boil out of water.

The weight on a dial canner is not the same thing as the weight rocker gauge on the other style canners. You must remember too with a dial gauge that it MUST be tested at a local Extension before first use and annually thereafter to make sure it is accurate. Many, if not most, canners find this an inconvenience unless they do large volume canning, live above 2,000 feet, or live close to an Extension that can do the testing. Presto Canners sell a conversion kit to go to a weight gauge.

They rust. Can't avoid it. The other 'problem' is if you want to use other than quart jars. You can buy a stainless steel rack and racks for handling pints, half-pints and 4 oz, but it is just much cheaper and easier to use the aluminum platform and the jar lifter. Most of the Boiling Water Canner kits sold are supposedly 'beginner' sets and designed on purpose to be as cheap as possible so people will buy them. The Ball Blue Book shows you how to make a cheap platform just by tying canning rings together.

It's possible, but as already stated, it really isn't worth the hassle to do it properly. Most that try it don't do it correctly and thus potentially doesn't pasteurize the food for storage. A Boiling Water Canner is not that expensive and I like them because they have a special lid that prevents water spillage during boiling. I do not use their wire rack however, which you will learn why on your own rather quickly. Instead I use the flat platform from the pressure canner. If you haven't already, get a current copy of the Ball Blue Book of Preserving. It has some good information in it on the equipment and utensils needed.

Originally Posted By: Mini I make it for him because believe me, it is easier. Easier, Yes, but you are looking for solutions. My partner would never put the bad things in front of me because I will eat them, though you need to have certain times during the month to let loose a little, like pizza night. If I wanted the bad things, I had to go out and buy and prepare them myself. That gets old fast. Even with the McD trips I now take the salad instead of fries and the Big & Tasty instead of the 1/4 Pounder. Still not the best, but it is a compromised "better".

Does he make that all by himself or are you making it for him? I find no problem with the beans. I'm in the same condition as him but when I buy only certain (good) foods it is amazing that one learns to cook and eat those things only.

Took some stale frozen bread, hotdog/hamburger rolls, that had outlived their useful life and put them in the blender to make bread crumbs. Bigger bread pieces got cut up as croutons. All went in to oven with some simple herbs to be toasted a little before going into sealed bags. Don't know if that saved me much since it opened up a ton of space in the freezer that I want to go out to the store now to fill up.