Canning...Where do I start?!?!?

[jillg]

[redhenfarm]

I am probably least qualified of the canners, but having just gotten my feet wet again I'll give you my input:

 

If you know anyone in your community/relatives who knows how to can it is helpful to do it with someone to get started because there are a lot of steps. As I worked on the canning and dearly wished I had help I remembered my fierce, bossy, unkind aunt came over to my little rental house to teach me how to can and make soup from scratch (two separate visits). Everyone in the family has memories of this woman being outrageously mean but this was truly one kind thing she did. My kitchen there was also small but she helped me set up and I believe she gave me the peaches and the jars and canner equipment.

Friends, is it the Kerr or Ball book that is so helpful. I have the newer Ball Blue Book which has some nice differences but I miss my older book and I'm going to search eBay to see if I can find another. So gather your equipment: waterbath canner, jars, rings and new lids. I took Westie's advice and just bought a pressure canner also because I want to can meat and soups as well as other things.

Plan to can what your family likes/will eat. There's a great article on canning also in Mother Earth Magazine August/September.

Now, the experts can let you know the rest.

[Guest Guest]

I am running out the door to pick up my daughter.. but here is a start..

 

find a stock pot with a lid! make sure it is tall enough to put in pint jars and if it is tall enough to take quart jars ..perfect!!!

 

got more then one>

 

well, there is your water bath canner!

 

you will need to go to wal-mart (hurry their seasonal canniong stuff is being moved out to make room for toys) and pick up a Jar puller (weird shaped tongs) and a lid lifter (long stick with a magnetic..as soon as you stick in hot water the magnet comes unglued and falls out! but it is better then nothing)

 

so far you have spent about $6.00. If you can buy any jars at about $7.00 a dozen, do pick up a dozen of wide mouth pints and a dozen wide mouth quarts.

 

Alternative to the jar lifter.. ladel out the boiling water and grab jar with a towel. way too much work. rather then buy the magnetic lid puller place the lids in a strainer and lift out of water.

 

you gotta use Ball jars, no getting around that. While the Ball Blue book is great!!! and at $5.00 cheap.

 

to see what I am refering to ...

http://www.homecanning.com/usa/ALProducts....=479&P=1472

 

now if ya want to see pictures and step by step information

http://www.paulnoll.com/Oregon/Canning/index.html

 

 

you can find recipes by going to .. http://foodsafety.cas.psu.edu/canningguide.html

there are others you can find on line just as good.

 

off to pick up the Pampered Princess it girls day out.

 

 

[Guest Guest]

Rushing in & out like Westbrook today, but here's something to think about:

 

See if your town has a "Senior Center" where people gather for meals, friendship, bingo, whatever. Ask the director if you can visit and ask women there about canning; if they've done it, if they'd show you, etc. Offer to do it at a neutral place if they might feel uncomfortable, like a church kitchen. (Don't take the kids!!

[Leia]

Hi!

First let me start by saying congrats to you for taking on this adventure! Once you get started, you'll get hooked!

 

Definitely start out by getting ahold of a good instruction book. If you can't buy one right now, go to the library....they have tons of canning books free for the looking! You will be so proud of yourself when you see those jars full!

 

Good luck!!!

Shawna

[jillg]

Thanks so much! I guess I will make a wanted post Saturday on my local FreeCycle thingy first, then see where I can go from there.

 

Uh-oh, is this one of those things where I'm going to love it and become obsessed with everything to do with canning and start stocking up on everything i can get my grubby mits on? LOL

[motherearth]

There is an online,self paced course offered by the University of Georgia. I have signed up, but have not started it yet. I spoke to the County Extension agent here about it and she said that it would be a great course. I chose not to use my SS# (see below).

 

http://webct.uga.edu/

 

Dear *****

I have been discussing this issue with WebCT. We've come to a resolution that doesn't require users to submit their SSN if they do not wish to disclose it. Users who do not wish to submit their SSN can fill out an exception account request (https://www.uga.edu/nchfp/exception_account.html) with the SSN "899890384". (That number will not be your SSN placeholder in WebCT, I will just take it as a flag to process your account differently.) You may forward this to your list/forum if you wish.

 

Thanks,

 

Jimmy Hansen

[Guest Guest]

Oh wow wickie, I am SO excited that you're gonna take the plunge. We all at one time didn't know how to can, but did exactly what you're doing, which is asking questions. All I canned for a few years was tomatoes and strawberry jam but then the canning bug bit me and now I can just about EVERYTHING that does not have dairy in it. As a general rule of thumb, the consensus of opinion is that food or meals with dairy in them should NOT be home canned due to the risk of bacterial infiltration and because the standard home canner cannot process safely dairy products.

 

With that said, I'll add my 2 cents for what it is worth.

 

I'd definitely invest in a Blue Ball canning book...it's got just about all the information you'll ever need to can different types of fruits and vegetables and meals. As far as a water bath canner, I'm with westie...I don't own a traditional pot that is supposedly for water bath canning...I use either my turkey roaster or one of my huge pots (just about everything I cook with is huge anyway) for my jams and jellies that hafta be water bath canned.

 

The rest of the stuff I can, meats, veggies, meals, I have 2 pressure canners...my monster one and my baby one...as others have suggested you can many times find them at garage sales and flea markets, and also on ebay. There are many excellent pressure canners, but I hafta say my all time favorite is my All American pressure canners...there is no rubber seal on the lid that goes bad; it's metal to metal. It's all personal preference and availability. It's always a good idea to take your canner to your local County Extension office and have them check the dial gauge to make sure it is working properly...pressure points and amount of time needed to can safely are important so you want to make sure your dial is working.

 

Depending on the altitude where you live, will dictate what pressure you should can at, either 10lbs or 15lbs pressure. I live close to the ocean so all my canning is done at 10lbs pressure.

 

As others have said, find yourself some Ball or Kerr canning jars...they are made by the same manufacturer and I use both...for some reason Ball jars tend to be more popular on the east coast, and Kerrs tend to be more popular on the west coast. Get some seals and rings for the top and then you're ready to start.

 

Canning is intimidating at first to many because of concern about doing it properly to make sure the food is safe. The seal lids for the top of the jars are similar to baby food jars...when you pop open the baby jars, the lid expands up...when it is unopened, the top is sucked down a little providing a solid seal. The same goes for your home canned products...there are rare times when 1 outta 20 jars won't seal, so I just throw it in the refrig and use it to cook with. The rest that seal correctly go into the cabinet for storage.

 

Those are just a few thoughts off the top of my head...it may feel overwhelming, but once you do it a couple of times and feel a little more comfortable doing it, it's a piece of cake. For now, if you just wanna can fruits or jams/jellies all you need is a big pot to do a water bath canning process...for other things, you'll need a conventional pressure canner. Once you get your supplies the fun starts....you can start picking and choosing (most times what is in season in your area) the things you'll wanna can. One thing I can tell you is that you'll find you'll buy less and less of commercially canned foods once you start...the taste is SO much better when you can it yourself.

 

Keep the questions coming, we're all cheering you on and are excited that you're gonna take the plunge. I'll hafta take some pics of different things I've canned and post them, so you can see an example of different things that we can...

 

Keep us posted!

[Guest Guest]

Peaches and apples are in season... peach jam, half peaches, sliced peaches, spiced peaches, peach pie filling..apple butter. apple sauce, apple pie filling..

 

dang, now I went and did it! I am hungry for a piece of hot peach pie!

[motherearth]

Here I go with another question..........

[Guest Guest]

Here are a few recipes

http://www.uaex.edu/Other_Areas/publicatio...ML/FSHED-89.asp

 

or...

 

can peaches or any other fruit in a medium syrup (I think it makes if more versatile for later use). If you want to make pie filling, then I drain the liquid off into a pan, add corn starch to thicken, put fruit in the shell and pour over some of the now thickened juice.

 

just what ever works best for your lifestyle. Remember that it is ok to eat pie for breakfast! eating pie is like eating cereal with fruit! LOL! ok, so anything to justify eating pie!

 

[Guest Guest]

*groan*

 

Please don't tell me you said PEACHES...

 

I'm still burned out on those thangs...

 

lol

 

Today I bought chicken breasts with skin and bone in...they were $1.00/lb cheaper than the boneless/skinless. I pulled the skins off and took the meat off the bone, cubed the chicken and it's still going in the pressure canner...I took all the skins and bones and threw them into 2 huge pots, added peppercorns, salt, celery, onion, carrots and a few bay leaves and have that simmering on the stove to make chicken broth tomorrow when I can it. Buying the chicken like I did ends up cheaper per lb then buying it already skinned and boned, the bonus is that I also get broth to can outta it too!

 

Ok, I'm gonna shadddup for now...I start talking about making different things to can and I just drone on and on and on and onnnnnnnnnnnnnnn...

[jillg]

um...really stupid question, Darlene, when you cubed the chicken to put it in the pressure cooker, do you cook the chicken? Obviously, I have no clue how this works!

[Guest Guest]

There are no stupid questions wickie...as they say, the only stupid question is the one that's not asked...(((wickie)))

 

In canning they have what they call *Raw Pack* and *Hot Pack*...the raw is obviously raw lol...the hot is usually partially cooked and hot when put into jars...

 

I tend to take the easier, softer way with this raw and hot packing, and cubed the chicken, put it into the jars raw, and poured hot broth over them, sealed them up and am still processing them at 15lbs pressure for 90 minutes...you can can things like this in various liquids, i.e. tomato sauce, water, broth, etc...they're almost done so I'm excited to see how they look. You can also can things like chicken with the bone in (like a whole drumstick or chicken breast) and the instructions for time and pressure processing are provided that way too.

 

As a side note, I have both regular and wide mouth jars. For the most part I use the regular mouth jars as they are much cheaper and easier to find...the wide mouth ones are awesome for things like canning large things, like a whole chicken breast, etc....and that's just a personal preference...I had planned on canning these chicken breasts whole but I didn't have the lids for my wide mouth jars...*pout*

 

lol

[motherearth]

Westie, thank you for the info........

[Bamboo]

I have a water bath canner and a large pressure canner and love them both. I have the Ball Blue Book.... awesome.

 

If you can find a copy of "Stocking Up", it is a wonderful book with more recipes and ways to use your canned goods.

 

Here is a nice website with a lot of recipes too:

www.fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi Just do a search for canning.

 

Have fun.... it is addicting.

 

Where is that canning icon we've been asking for

[Guest Guest]

Here is a canning primer..

 

http://www.logicsouth.com/~lcoble/dir10/excs72.txt

 

[Kygal]

i am glad i found this thread. i wasn;t going to can anything but then when i talked to muy husband a littl ewhile ago he told me that tom was giving us a big box of apples from his trees. yay! so i might as well can them. thing is, i have not canned anything in ages. i know the basics from helping mom when i was a kid, but that is a lot of years ago, lots of time to forget, and lots of memories to hide old ones. lol anyways, i am glad i found this to help put me on track. lol

[Nelda]

Wicked -

How have you made out with getting canning supplies together?

If you ever need help I don't live to far from you and we could always get together and can something/anything?

Hope you are having good luck....

[jillg]

Well, I have an offer from a wanted ad I put on FreeCycle, for a bunch of various size canning jars. I just have to get DH to come home early enough from work to let me take the car and get them. (back down to one vehicle is so sad , I got spoiled having my own!)

 

And I do have one of those big blue speckled enamel pots and I'm sure I have a lid that would fit, will that work as a water bath thing? Then I'll have to get the lids and rings myself.

 

It'd be great to can together, except that when I say I'm a SAHM, literelly, I stay at home (I hate taking the bus with a little one), so I couldn't come to you.

 

So, what's the easiest thing to start canning? (and cheapest?)

[Guest Guest]

yep you got the makings of a water bath canner! you will need to use jar rings on the bottom so that the jars are raised and water can flow around..no big deal. (if you have a round rack that will fit on the bottom the better)

 

The easiest thing to start with is fruit and make preserves! fruit, sugar and a little lemon juice. Jam-fruit, sugar, pectin. Jelly the same but will need to strain the fruit. depends on what you like.

[logcabinmama]

I haven't posted here before, but, as late in the season as it is, I agree with Wes, fruit, and jelly would be the easiest.

 

 

[Guest Guest]

interesting stove!!!

 

http://www.alin.or.ke/tech-note/data/canning.htm

 

 

[Cathyv]

Some of our Amish friends have these but with straight sides.

can using wood and you can do it outside in the heat of sunmmer.