What am I doing wrong?

[bluegrassmom]

Ok. I've canned quite a bit in the last two years. Mostly I use my pressure canner. I've done it enough that I'm confident in my skills and comfortable with my canner. Everything seals up nice and pretty.

 

But I can't help but think that I'm somehow missing something. And here's why. I've seen so many of the expert canners here - Darlene, Westie, different ones - talk about how it's not time consuming and how easy peasy it is.

 

Well, for me it ain't. It's usually an almost all day affair. And God forbid I start in the afternoon, I'm there till one or two in the morning.

 

Once my food of choice is ready and my jars and paraphanalia clean, I start by heating some water up in my kettle. Cause if I don't preheat the water for the canner, it'll take an *obsene* amount of time to get it up to the proper heat. Once that water is boiling I pour it in and then top that off with more tap water that is as hot as I can get it from the tap. Then it's put on the stove, jars put in, etc, etc. Once it gets up to pressure and it's time to start timing it, I've not ever found a way to not hover over it. Because I swear if I take my eyes off it for three seconds it wants to slip down in pressure or shoot way up. I've canned on two different stoves and had this same thing happen. If I have to process for say...90 minutes, then I'm sitting there that whole darned 90 minutes babying the temp. gauge on my stove.

 

By the time I'm done, from start of fixing the food till the pressure lets up and it's time to open the canner, I've easily gone through 6-8 hours of work. And I've usually got about 7 jars to show for it.

 

If I hadn't seen so many times how easy and simple it seems for others, I wouldn't give it a thought. But what the heck am I doing wrong? Or am I not doing anything wrong and it really is that time consuming for everyone else? Input please...

[WormGuy]

I get my jars in the dishwasher while I am getting the food ready. This gives me 50 minutes, if I sterilize the jars it takes 99 minutes.

 

I also put the canner on, put the water in and start heating it up. I put extra water in as I would rather dip it out than add to it. I put the lids on a little later.

 

Usually the jars are ready when the food is ready and so is the canner. I fill the jars and put them in the canner and let it roll on high heat. I then go do something else. As soon as the weight jiggles I adjust the burner and keep a close ear to it. I have never had the burner go up and down on the stove yet, and I don't need to sit and watch it.

 

I wonder if there is a problem with the gas regulator. Do you have city gas or propane? Does the flame get higher or lower that you can actually see? If it does I would get the regulator checked.

 

 

 

John

[Darlene]

Well, I think that it depends on what I'm canning, as to how long it takes. Some of the food prep is labor intensive...sometimes putting a batch of food together is time consuming...but I'm not seeing where it would take me 6-8 hours, at least not the way I do it.

 

Take for example, when I make my marinara. I make huge pots of whatever I'm making, whether it be marinara or soups, stew, whatever it is. So, I put my marinara together, which takes me about and hour because I hafta chop onion, fresh parsley & basis, peel garlic, etc. But once I get all the ingredients done, I let it simmer on low...during that time, I'm doing whatever else I wanna do.

 

Now, it comes time to can. I've already washed my jars, I fill about 2 inches in my canner and turn the heat on high. I take the screw bands and put a sealing lid inside and set that in the bottom of the canner. As the canning water heats up, my seals and lids get steralized. I take my jars, fill them up, wipe the rims, use a pair of tongs to get my rings and seals out of the bottom of the canner, put them on the jars, place jars into canner, and begin the processing.

 

It takes about 15-20 minutes for my canner to get up to pressure (this is my AA 921...my 941 takes a little longer), I vent the steam for 10 minutes, put on the weight, and because I've canned enough on this stove and it's electric, I know what number on the dial on the stove will keep my pressure constant. Once my weight starts to jiggle, I turn it the dial down to that number and then go about my business for the next 25 minutes, or however long I need to process that particular product. I put my timer on, when the timer dings, I turn off the heat and then go about my business...

 

etc etc etc...

 

You get the picture. I'm not understanding why you are having a problem regulating your heat...are you on gas or electric? As far as it taking so long to get your water heated in your canner to begin with, maybe put the lid on the canner to keep the heat inside, facilitating the water to heat up faster.

 

When I did massive amounts of canning on my commercial gas range, I would have to stick around for the first 5-10 minutes as I messed with the flame to get it to a point where it would keep a constant pressure, but once I did that, I didn't have to sit there.

 

So, like I said at the beginning of the post, aside from the normal food prep time involved in making whatever recipe I am, the filling of the jars and processing isn't that big of a deal for me. It wouldn't matter if I were making marinara for dinner that night or making marinara to home can. The same amount of time would be required to make the marinara to begin with. That's one of the reasons that I do such large batches of stuff (20-24 quart pots), whether it be marinara, soups, stews, applesauce, apple butter, etc...whatever it might be. If I'm going to be cooking a particular item, I might as well go gun ho and can enough to be done with it for quite a while. If you really wanna know the truth, because I make my marinara really from scratch scratch (I use tomatoes that I home canned previously, etc), I let that simmer on low for about 24 hours...so I guess you could say it takes me 24+ hours to can marinara lolol...

 

Cooking from scratch is always time consuming, but it's the way I prefer to cook. That's one of the fun things about home canning, because at a later date, I can have my "food to go" by just pulling out one of my jars that I spent time on earlier and have "instant" whatever.

 

 

[PoGo]

bluegrassmom, my canning is also quite lengthy time wise.

The last time I did chicken, for some reason, I timed my canner.

 

I have no idea how long it took me to prepare the jars and meat (raw pack cubes without bones) but, it took my AA930, with 18 pints of raw chicken, one hour to get hot enough to vent. I let it vent for 10 minutes then put the weight on.

 

It then took 24 minutes to get up to 15 pounds of pressure.

I processed the pints for 75 minutes.

 

It then took my canner 70 minutes to depressurize to zero pounds so I could open it.

 

As you can see, just those minutes listed add up to almost 4 hours. I probably had 5 to 6 hours total after counting the time it took to wash my jars, de-fat and cube the meat then put it in jars and add the salt.

 

My stove is natural gas. I don't have to hover over my canner, but it does take a few minutes to get the flame just right for processing once I've reached that point. I go about my business in the house once each step is reached.

 

In my mind, canning is easy...not difficult at all. However, it is time consuming. But the products sure taste good!

 

Like Darlene said, the fast part is when you just have to open a jar for dinner.

[Jeepers]

I was going to say what Pogo said.

 

For me, the canning process takes a long time but it isn't labor intensive. It's all that waiting for the pressure to build up and then go down again. I have the weighted kind so I don't have to watch it. When I get the jiggle right, I set the timer and forget about it.

 

The first year I put out a garden I canned green beans for 4 days straight. From the time I got up until I went to bed. It was a lot of work but I didn't have to plant or can another green bean for over 3 years. Four days of work for over 3 years of beans was worth it for me.

[westbrook]

I love to can leftovers.. so I make sure I have plenty. While I am eating dinner, the canner water is heating, the food is staying hot, the jars are being sterilized and about the time I am done eating, I am ready to fill the jars. Once that is done and I am waiting for the canner to get to pressure, I am now busy doing dishes, cleaning the dining room table off. Once that is done, I am finishing cleaning the kitchen and the canner is busy humming away. About the time I am done with the kitchen and a couple of posts it time to turn off the canner and wait.

 

It takes me the time to prepare the food and a additional processing time and venting steam time to open plus the time to get it in the jars.

 

I have a food processor which makes chopping a breeze in a matter of a minute I can have onions diced.. if I don't use it and have to chop them by hand.. I spend more time crying then chopping!

 

When I do fruit, like Jeepers green beans, it takes days to do them, pitting each cherry one by one but 10 years worth of cherries is worth the effort.

 

When the garden is growing, noting comes in all at the same time, I might be canning 3qt jars today, 4 tomorrow, and as the season progresses I might be trying to put up 20 qts in a day.

 

I have a huge canner and a small one. I would like a medium size one next. I spend a lot of time putting the food together and little time actually on the canning part.

 

Do pints.. makes it look like you have more! seriously, I make huge pots of stuff.. may have to spend two or three days canning!

[bluegrassmom]

My stove isn't gas. Just a regular electric. I don't know why I have to baby the temp. the whole time, I just do.

 

And you're all right, it's not that it's so much hard work. It's just the time consuming factor that can make me wanna pull my hair out sometimes.

 

 

[westbrook]

I have an electric stove.... I have 2 burners that are larger and heat faster... I use those.

 

I have electric stoves but love electric ovens.

[Darlene]

Perhaps looking at it like this.

 

7 hours x 7 meals breaks down to 1 hour/meal since you've preserved your home cooking.

[bluegrassmom]

Yeah, I use the larger burners as well. The little ones wouldn't even come close to getting the job done, lol! Hopefully I'll have alot of time this summer for canning once the garden starts producing and all the homeschool lessons are done for a while.

[etp777]

Could be that canner too. Known anyone else in area who cans whose canner you might be able to borrow and try? One of friends has canners of same size, but two different brands. one jiggles along just fine with no attention needed, but the other one requires her to babysit it whole time, same as you. Not that the canner is necessarily bad, just a combination of that canner and that stove was picky.

[Violet]

Bluegrass, are you using the special canner burner ? You need to use one on an electric stove.

They are specially designed for canning without ruining your stove. If you try to keep using a regular element, you will probably ruin your stove. How do I know , LOL ? I ruined 2 that way before I learned about the canning element.

http://www.partsquik.com/scripts/realtime....p?prod=08011324

Some of the new stoves also cycle on and off a lot to keep them from overheating. That may be the case of your stove.

My guess is it is your stove, not the canner.

 

 

[highdesertgirl]

Darlene, how do you keep your jars hot until filling them? I thought they had to be in hot water til the last minute. I don't have enough room on my stovetop for everything.

[Evergreen]

And Darlene!

How many jars do you do at one time when you do left overs. I wanted to can the leftover white chili -but I probally only had 2 quarts left.. so we ended up jsut eating it for leftovers- but Middle Ds is suppose to move out next month and I forsee a LOT more leftovers.....so What is the minuim # of jars you can????

[Darlene]

highdesert, I don't keep my jars hot till I fill them...I just wash them and let them dry and fill them from there. The jars are strong enough (in my opinion) to be filled up with hot ingredients, which will begin to warm and make hot the jars. That way, when I put the jars into my canner, the jars are hot from the foods, and I think over the years, I've had only 2 jars break.

 

Evergreen, I have the All American 910 canner, which does 4 quarts and 7 pints. I would have no problem just canning one or 2 quarts or pints in it. I doubt I'd bother with one pint, and would do one quart if the ingredients were special enough lol. There's no reason you can't do that small of a batch.

[Violet]

You can put the jars in a pan of water in the oven to keep them hot. Truthfully, I do like Darlene. I know, I teach the gals that they are supposed to be hot, but at home I don't. I just have to teach the USDA methods. It is mostly so they don't break, as they will get sterilized during canning. Any food that requires processing 10 min. or longer only need the jars to be clean, not boiled to be sterilized.

 

[Cricket]

I run my jars through the dishwasher, and just leave them in until I'm ready to fill. They stay warm enough that I don't worry about putting in hot foods. And it takes no stove space!

[Jeepers]

Originally Posted By: Cricket

I run my jars through the dishwasher, and just leave them in until I'm ready to fill. They stay warm enough that I don't worry about putting in hot foods. And it takes no stove space!

That's exactly what I do. Besides, the dishwasher uses hotter water in the rinse cycle than I could doing them at the sink.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

[Snowmom]

 

Bluegrassmom, I too have some problems with keeping the temp right on the stove, but, from the sounds of it, not as much as you do. But, if you are setting by the stove, have a book or hand work to do, that way you are not wasting your time doing nothing. I've done both hand work and read while waiting for it to settle down.

 

Of course, you could also be doing the or something else in the kitchen at the same time too. Oh, I don't have a dishwasher, so I do mine by hand.

 

The way I keep my jars hot is, I have a roaster that holds about 7 quarts and I put water in it and the jars, turn the heat on and make sure it is hot. This is on the small burner, the canner is on the large burner. I then take the roaster, and put it on the counter, and turn the jars one at a time and fill them. Of course I have to use a hot pad to turn them, as they are really hot. I also have the flats in the roaster, so they are getting hot at the same time.

 

After filling the jars, be sure to wipe the top of the jar to make sure there is nothing on it. Then just add the flat and ring and into the canner they go.

 

It all depends on what I am canning as to how long it takes. I usually do only one canner a day, since I don't have a big garden any more. So, it is nice to do it after we have eaten. I then let it cool over night and the jars come out in the morning.

 

What are you canning that takes you so much time to get it ready? I know when canning beans and carrots and potatoes, it takes a long time just to get them ready. But, the cold packed meat, it shouldn't take that long.

 

Happy

 

[highdesertgirl]

Thanks all! Now that I'm not worried about jars that aren't boiling hot it will make canning that much easier and I'll be more apt to get to it.