I knew I had bought some supplies at yard sales & such when I moved here, so I went to the garage to take a look. I have 2 dozen small mouth quart jars, 1 dozen 1/2 pint jars, 1 dozen 3/4 pint jars, maybe 6-8 dozen wide mouth lids w/rings, and at least 20 dozen small mouth jar lids, all New-in-Box. I also have a box full of miscellaneous jars. I don't have a water-bath canner...that's a roasting pan sitting up there. But as @Don Alaska said, any large boiling water holder will do. I need to get a canning kit (tongs, etc) and maybe some wide mouth quart jars and pint jars. And some labels.
I would assume that the canner would simply need to be filled with jars full of water to take up the extra space. As Kate mentioned it is important to have a sturdy rack in the canner to keep jars off the bottom of the pot and to keep them in place. If your canner(s) don't have racks then you should start looking for one. To use the old American canner as a water bath, I would look for a regular pot lid to use instead of the pressure lid. You may have a big regular pot that has a lid that is "close enough for government work."
Yup. I believe it was you who mentioned that before. I need to go through and re-read this entire thread to pick up those tips now that I've bought a canner. The canners I have include the rack, although I might get a second one for stacking small jars.
You definitely need rack(s). It's surprising how much the jars kind of "float" around if not secured somehow. If there's a lot of movement the jars can break causing a big mess.
I didn't think of that. I though the racks were to keep the jars off of the bottom, away from the direct heat.
I was gonna do more research before asking this question, but I'm lazy and have poor impulse control... Things I've read infer that I must follow the recipes written specifically for canning. Does that mean I cannot can my favorite spaghetti sauce or beef stew? I don't want to make a "canning batch" of a new recipe only to discover that I don't really like it.
That is correct, though they also help keep jars upright and also usually have some kind of handles to help lift the jars out of the pot.
That's pretty much the case, for a few reasons. Some ingredients should not be used in canned foods. Here is a discussion with some good info... https://permies.com/t/262203/Newbie-Advice-tested-recipe
I always canned my own recipes, or rather my grandmother's recipes. The canning books have changed over the years, I think. Just like most directions on everything, they are careful what they say....law suits.
There are always a lot of good book on Kindle that you can get either free or really cheap, and if you have Kindle Unlimited, there are even more that you can borrow and read. This is just an idea of some of the free canning books right now on Amazon Kindle store. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=canning+and+preserving
That was interesting. Only one person said "I can what I want, and only worry about using the proper method [pressure vs water bath] for the ph of what I'm canning." Are you saying you can whatever you happen to cook (meaning they are legacy family recipes and are not canning-specific recipes)? That guy who made the "I can what I want" comment had this observation, sort of along the lines of what I think you just said: I often advise "Do as I say, not as I do." That being said the common recommendation from the USDA is to use tested recipes. However, I'm an outlaw and have canned pretty much everything over many years. Some things to consider. The cut-off for safe waterbath canning is 4.5ph. Anything above that needs to be pressure canned. That's one bit of advice I adhere to. Part of the problem with the USDA recommendations is that they're restricted by funding. It's basically non-existent for home food preservation research. So, if they don't have the research they can't recommend a practice. Funding pretty much ran out in the 80's. Your cooking time really doesn't figure into preservation time, so extended cooking is just loss of quality. If it were me, I would go with the ingredient with the longest processing time and make sure to adjust for altitude. Also keep in mind product density. A super dense product won't conduct heat as well as a looser one. Good luck. When I'm refining a recipe, or putting together my own version from different recipes, I often put the ingredients into a spreadsheet and categorize them by Liquid or Solid. That helps me see what ratios different recipes have, and can guide my final recipe. Since I won't be canning a ton of stuff, I could do that with the canning recipes for stews and pasta sauces.
Thanks, Yvonne. I'll download some of those. I want to get started and am overwhelmed by the volume of information. It's like being required to read the entire owner's manual before I can get behind the wheel for the first time.
I actually have not canned any "recipes" to speak of. I can tomatoes or other "single ingredient" things for the most part. I have made salsas and stuff using Ball canning recipes but those are simple. If I have leftover soup or whatever I just put it in the freezer.
The main things I would want to can are soups, stews, broths, and pasta sauce. As that one guy said, I thought I could just can it for whatever length of time the longest ingredient requires, paying attention to not making things too dense (although meat can be canned.) Yeh, it can't be that hard. If I start off with a recipe, can it for the recommended time, and the lid successfully seals, I can't imagine there being an issue. I've made plenty of stuff in my pressure cooker and not had the bomb squad show up