Jackie Clay-Atkinson - Ask Jackie: Canning Basics

Table of Contents

Ask Jackie

Canning Basics

Copyright 1999-2012

ISBN: 978-0-9860152-1-2

Backwoods Home Magazine

PO Box 712

Gold Beach, Oregon 97444

www.backwoodshome.com

Edited by Jessie Denning, Julia Denning, Haley Kessel, Connie Sayler, Lisa Nourse, Rhoda Denning, and Ilene Duffy

Cover art by Don Childers

Illustrations by Don Childers, Jessie Denning, and John Dean

Introduction

Canning is one of those life skills that kind of fell by the wayside. Luckily, a lot of independent-thinking people are again discovering how fun and easy canning is. No matter where you live, you can easily learn to can a great deal of your own food quickly and inexpensively. Not only is this home canned food great tasting and free of any chemicals or preservatives, but it will last on your pantry shelves for decades, remaining fresh and nutritious right in those beautiful jars lining your pantry.

To can safely, it is essential to have proper equipment for the type of food you are going to can, along with a good canning book. You can often find good used equipment such as: water bath canners for canning fruits, jams, jellies, preserves and pickles; pressure canners for low-acid foods like vegetables and meats; and boxes of canning jars at yard sales and estate auctions. Ive even found some for free!

I began my own foray into canning as a young girl helping my grandmother and my mom can in our basement in Detroit. Its always been a part of my life and Im so glad I learned the basics at a young age so I could put them to use every year, through all the seasons. Its such a wonderful skill to learn.

In this book I answer questions about canning basics, water bath canning, pressure canning, jar lids and types of jars, and storage of home canned foods, along with a whole lot of miscellaneous questions.

Enjoy reading. I hope Ive managed to answer many of your own questions too!

Jackie Clay

Canning basics

Canning book for beginners

I am getting interested in canning, but having no previous experience, I need a good place to start. I have an old book printed in 1956 that details canning methods, but is it sufficient for modern-day canning methods? If not, can you recommend a good book or two on the subject? A basic search on Amazon.com yields dozens of possibilities and is somewhat overwhelming for a novice like me.

Lana Flavies, Massachusetts

I wouldnt recommend a 1956 canning book. There have been some changes since then. For instance, there are now low-acid tomatoes that werent around back then. And some practices that were previously thought of as safe have been proven unsafe.

A good, easy-to-read, cheap canning manual is the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving . It is a paperback and available at most local hardware stores and even Wal-Mart.

I promise youll love canning your own food. It is so easy and the foods taste so much better than store-bought foods do. Especially if you can what you raise yourself! Its always so exciting to me, even after canning for more than forty years, to pick a mess of beans and have them canning merrily in only half an hour. Now thats fresh!

A few basic canning questions

I purchased an All-American pressure canner online and have a few interesting questions. Inside my pressure canner I have this thin round disk made of aluminum and was wondering. Inside a pressure canner do I just put the jars on the bottom of the canner, or do I put the metal disk on the bottom?

My next question is simple also: how does one double stack canning jars; is it okay to just put jars on top of one another?

Lastly, does anyone know where to get the pressure gauge tested? Ive asked everyone I know and most people dont even know what a pressure canner is let alone where to get the gauge tested.

Chris Deere, Canada

The round disk is to put on the bottom of the canner to keep the jars from resting directly on the bottom of the canner, which quite often makes them break from direct exposure to the heat. (Actually, the bottom breaks out of the jars.) You just drop the disk in, add water, then warm it up and add your jars. So simple they dont tell you. (Hey, it took me a day to figure out how to put the paper into my word processor!)

To double stack the jars, you need another separation between the layers of jars. I use a cut down grill rack I got at the dollar store. It fits nicely inside my canner and has many rings of heavy wire, set close together so the jars rest on it and it allows the steam to circulate freely around and under the jars.

You can usually get your pressure gauge tested at your Extension Office. This is most often located at the courthouse at your county seat. If they dont do it there, they probably can send it out for testing. Its a simple test and only takes a few minutes. And its usually free!

Learning to can foods

Im starting to try to learn to can stuff; got a water bath canner from Shetlers and jars and lids. I thought there would be a book of some kind with it, but there wasnt. I have been retired for 5 years and got a fair garden and orchard going. I cant see things going to waste. Could you give me a few instructions and some times to boil things like peas, green beans, corn and such, especially tomatoes and juice?

Charlie Coss, Ohio

Good for you, Charlie! Sounds like youre off and running. But to keep you going, please dont try to process vegetables and meat products in your water bath canner. Boiling does not kill deadly bacteria that can invade your jars. To kill them, you must use steam generated by a pressure canner. The foods that you are able to can in your new water bath canner are many: tomatoes, fruit and tomato juice, jams, jellies, pickles, fruit, and even milk.

You can buy a good, inexpensive canning manual, such as the Ball Blue Book , at most stores that carry canning equipment. Even Wal-Mart sells it.

In the meantime, you can go to your library and borrow a canning manual or book. If they dont have one on the shelves, they can get one from inter-library loan. You can then write down notes to tide you over until you get your manual.

Dont try to can without one. I open one for every food I can, and Ive been doing it for more than 40 years.

You can also look at a few back issues of BHM and pick up times and instructions on many foods from my articles and this column.

Canning with aspirin is neither safe nor effective

Do you know about canning apples with aspirin? I have put up rhubarb with ice water and it works just fine.

Nellie Jacobs, Alaska

Canning with aspirin was a fad for a while. It is not a safe or effective way of canning. You should always follow the simple water bath steps to put up both apples and rhubarb so you wont have moldy or unsafe fruit later on.

Canning safety

I love your column and your common sense practical advice. But I do have a question: I recently took classes (from the cooperative extension program) to become a master food preserver in California. We were taught that it is unsafe to can thick butters like pumpkin because the heat distribution in the center of the jars is uneven. Wouldnt that apply to things like canned bologna as well?

I also recently heard that the USDA has stopped recommending drying your own jerky (without boiling the meat first which makes it yucky) due to bacterial problems. I have found most of what you say to be exactly what I was taught. My mom canned for years, many times with methods not approved and never had a problem, but since you are giving public advice, many times to novices, maybe you should err on the side of caution? Or do you have info that hasnt reached California yet?