How the food, work area, and equipment are handled is a huge part of canning as well; cleanliness and sterilization. I never have used kosher salt in canning. I always used canning salt.
Who doesn't read the manual when you are not sure about something? If one is not sure how to do or handle a particular task, or even operate something, don't. So sad. Poor woman.
I need to ask my sister about it, but there was a canning plant that opened in the summertime to the public. People took their produce and prepared it (peeled, sliced, whatever) and then it was put into cans and commercially sealed/sterilized. So yes... the cans were heat processed. The finished cans looked just like grocery store cans but without labels. Apparently it's still a thing but without the metal cans... https://www.pickyourown.org/canneries.htm
I know, right? Apparently she had done some water bath canning and "assumed" the pressure canner worked in a similar fashion. She is lucky to be alive. I am so nervous about pressure cookers of any type that I read, re-read, watch videos, etc.
Great video, @Beth Gallagher ! I think it might frighten some folks into not pressure canning, and that would be sad but better to not do it than to kill oneself and family. It is a popular myth that cooking longer compensates for the elevated temperature. You can boil botulinum spores for days and not kill them, but the bacteria itself and toxin will be destroyed in 30 minutes of boiling. This woman did everything I can think of wrong. It reminded me of Bloomberg's statement on farming--"Anyone can be a farmer just put seeds in the ground and they grow." This woman knew almost as little about food preservation as Bloomberg knows about farming. At least she had waterbath canned, but that might have given her a false sense of security. Thanks for posting.
Were you affiliated with the Mormons when young, @Beth Gallagher ? They have a big canning kitchen here and a portable system that can be checked out by individual groups. Canning in metal cans is still a thing here and the University of Alaska has videos about it if anyone is really interested. It is very much like what is done in commercial canneries without the mixing devices used commercially. Canning in metal is more difficult than in glass, but when people travel by 4-wheeler, boat, snow machine, and plane, there is much less breakage, i.e. none. We just sent our metal canner and cans to the thrift store a few years ago. Mormon folks and many preppers still do "cold canning" for dried goods. If you want you Oreos to still taste fresh in twenty years, cold can them with a oxygen absorber in a metal can.
Actually my mother was Mormon, but I don't think that cannery had any affiliation with them. In that link I posted to Brunner above, there is a listing by state of available public canning facilities and there are several in south GA where I was raised. So apparently it's still a "thing" but I don't know about the metal cans.
Funny, I was gonna mention the Mormons because they set up events for the general public to come and learn food storage techniques. Just like that cannery, people can bring their stuff in and have it sealed in mylar bags with desiccant or O2 absorbers. I know they also teach a bunch of other stuff on prepping. I've never seen any such events here in Virginia.
It looks like the only one in Virginia is in Richmond, but the Mormon site says that participant canning is no longer available except in a few places in the West. Now they sell you preserved stuff that is already prepped. I suspect they didn't want to submit to FDA inspections. https://ezprepping.com/lds-cannery-food-storage-center-locations-near-you/#canning-locations
Well for heaven's sake. I just called my sister and she told me that not only did my grandma go to the commercial cannery, but that she had a manual canner for tin cans. My sister still owns it! It is similar to this... Apparently they bought empty tin cans and lids and that machine thing "crimped" the lid on after it was filled with food. Then the cans were processed, probably in a water bath for several hours.
Whether you do the cans in a water bath or a pressure canner, the process is similar. You have to raise the temperature of the cans and contents prior to sealing the cans or the cans will burst or pop the lids. Way too much trouble for me. Sometimes jars break if you tighten the rings too tight also. Finger tight is good enough and the vacuum formed after to water vapor escapes seals the jar lids. At least our cans didn't have rubber/neoprene "washers". We also canned in metal cans one place I worked when sending very hazardous infectious stuff to CDC or a state lab.
I'm not planning to do any cans at all. I was just sharing what my grandma did many years ago, at least to the best of my recollection. I know that as soon as she got a "deep freeze" (she never said "freezer"), she pretty much abandoned canning altogether.