Yeh, those are certainly the Cadillac canner. No gaskets to fail, just accurately machined metal-to-metal. I've got a Goodwill-find Presto I picked up a while ago. I had to buy the weights on Ebay. I've not used it yet.
Those would be on the other end of the mound if we planted them on it. Hope to get back to planting this fall if we can. I'll plant potatoes in a tub inside greenhouse.We don't have good results with potaoes don't know why.
We used Presto too.it scared the heck out of me when it blew up like a ballon but didn't explode thank goodness. That inspired us ro buy the one that scews down. Not saying yours will explode at all we used it for couple years before that happened . Maybe the release vent got stuck ,don't know.So if I just have one of those I'd use it and see how I like canning before I went to expense of the best one.
That's kinda why I was interested in that propane burner setup you use. If I saw a canner or other pressure cooker swell up like that, I would poop my pants. Better outside than indoors.
People who hunt like to can too. We don't hunt hubby now loves the deer he use to kill to eat,lol. Here is a short lesson on canning ,we have found so many helgful YT videos on all kinds of things. Plus my friend is really into canning.
We don't can as much now either. We do have some dried beans we want to can maybe some chicken for the dog .Good thing about chicken we can bones and all and its ready to make dog food or even food for us if need be.
My Mom was from North Carolina tobacco country and she canned vegetables. If she didn't get enough tomatoes to can from her garden she'd buy overripe ones from farmers or from the store and can them. I recall that the process seemed quite laborious with sterilizing the jars and all. I loved the results, though. I remember cautioning her to always use the proper matching lids for the mason jars because sometimes she'd get careless and use any lid that fit. She was one to do things her own way and didn't pay much attention to me. The last year she canned anything, one of her jars of canned tomatoes that didn't have the right lid had a nasty brown color instead of the usual nice red. I quietly disposed of it without pointing it out to her. She's 93 in this picture. I miss her so, so much.
I canned some squash pickles today while Earl E. Bird watched. Pickled squash????? You say. That's what I thought to start with. A friend gave me the recipe and I put it aside for several years. But then one summer, I had squash up the ying yang and I thought, "Well, Why not?" They turned out to be delicious. You can't buy them at the grocery store.
Those squash look good, Shirley. My great aunt (grandma's sister) used to pickle all kinds of stuff, from watermelon rind to who knows what. I think she was just bored but she made the best bread-and-butter pickles on the planet.
Friends in the next town make pickled zucchini with a little onion / capsicum they are my favourite with a bit of cheese on a dry biscuit .