ottawa foodies

Hi!
I'm really VERY interested in canning my own homemade foods but I'm not exactly clear on a few things.
What is the difference between a pressure cooker and a pressure canner?
Where can I find quality but inexpensive tools for canning?
Are there any books out there (other than the one put out by Bernardin) that can walk me through most processes?
I'll start with that and see where it gets me. Thanks in advnace!

The Bernardin and similar guides are not so great and personally I would not feel safe canning food if that were the only thing I've read. Technically they are safe I guess but they have next to no detail.

"Putting Food By" is one of the bibles but the last update was middle 90s. It does tell you the difference between a cooker and a canner. One key criterium is that it have a proper pressure guage to be a canner.

Google "USDA Canning Guide" without the quotes and you'll get several versions of their excellent free book. This is a second "bible"
foodsafety.psu.edu
www.uga.edu

There is another "bible" that I've not read yet myself - the blue bird book or something like that. Been meaning to pick up a copy and read it.

Don't do it until you've read one of the "bibles".

Throw caution to the wind and start with something easy like pickles :)

I had an aunt who did all this stuff who I'd love to ask for you but she takes something like three months to answer an email and I hate the phone so I googled.

www.homecanning.com/can/

www.eatrightontario.ca

Preston Hardware is a good source of canning supplies, though they tend to carry more stock toward the end of the summer.

My favourite book is The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving, by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard. It has detailed instructions on canning, focussing on safety. And great recipes.

I think the Bernadin guide and website are pretty good and their recipes are dependable. I also love their cheesy slogan, "Because you can!".

Thanks for your help everyone!

new york times did a feature on canning.

main article:
www.nytimes.com

slide show of canning step-by-step:
www.nytimes.com

recipe pickled asparagus:
www.nytimes.com

do's & don'ts:
www.nytimes.com

I would personally recommend against trying to learn canning from the NY times. Though fortunately they do say this :

They say : "But recipes should be followed closely, and should not be culled from index cards dating from the Great Depression. The Department of Agriculture, having devoted extensive testing to home preserving, recommends not using any preserving recipes developed before about 1990."

Which means the same as something I've always said - never learn how to can from your grandmother. Or you mother for that matter since she probably learned from your grandmother. Learn from a good book. They list several of the same ones I do, and also give a link to the same free book I mentioned : www.uga.edu/nchfp/

i really hope no one would go about their first canning adventure by just following the NYT! i think the point of the article is to point out the resurgance of canning and the glossy pics are just food p0rn, to get you excited about all your canning prospects. i assume most people use the food section of NYT more as a "trends" section and then go about their homework on how to follow the new trend, but who knows?!

OK, I've learned lots of good canning tricks/recipes from my aunts, mom, grandmother. No one has ever fallen ill from something I've canned. Agreed, if you post it publicly make sure you have all the disclaimers and follow all of the extra rigid precautions for not getting botulism (excuse my spelling if its wrong). However I think there is lots to be learned from the previous generations.

I'm fairly certain I'm more likely to get sick from one of my kids: sneezing in my face, defecating on/near some thing I haven't yet sanitized, or some combination of the two, than from my grandmothers pickle recipe.

Do as you wish sourdough. Yes, there is definitely lots to be learned from previous generations - I am the last person you need to tell that to. But there is lots to be ignored, too. I love my wife's grandmother dearly, but I won't eat her canned goods. I learned how to make sauerkraut and fermented dills from her husband, but I updated the techniques and procedures to modernize them (although there is far less danger with these because they involve extremely low pH / high acid). Do yourself a favour and read a good modern book, just to be sure that what grannie taught you is considered safe today. I bet you'll be surprised. One quick example - my mom used to can stuff with wax on top of the bottles. That is definitely not safe!

In the 1970s there was a huge spike in home-canning in the US, and with it came a huge spike in sickness and death from improperly canned goods. And food scientists as a result learned quite a lot about what not to do. (source: www.amazon.ca) We are currently seeing another spike in interest in home canning right now, and I for one fully expect to see another spike in sickness and death.

Nothing saying you can't take your dearest recipes from your forebearers and update them with modern safety.

I always been told that the easiest place to start is freezer jam... you get used to the processing methods, and then can move onto regular jams and pickles from there.

I stick to the simple stuff also. And generally I happen to prefer frozen to canned goods. I still do a few things every year though (salsa, jam, pickles, spaghetti sauce) so i don't lose the art...what if we don't have electricity for freezers sometime down the line?

Good deal on a pressure canner from Amazon.com if you want to go through the hoops since they will not ship to Canada.

www.amazon.com

So . . . ummm . . . if there are bubbles in your jar after you've processed it and it's vacuum-sealed that's bad, right? And I should toss the whole thing out rather than wait a month to see how it turned out?

I thought I had dislodged all of them, but there must have been others that I couldn't see. What a waste of an evening! I was only trying to do one jar, but I guess that makes it even more a waste ;)

Whoa, slow down there momo! What did you process, and by what method?

NEVER throw something out until you are certain it is bad. That is a general rule for making beer too.

I like your style, Zym ;)

Processed some ramps, AKA wild garlic, AKA I took a single bite out of the end of one and I reeked for days.

I made a pickling solution (50%-25%-25% vinegar-water-sugar, plus assorted spices) and heat-processed in boiling water (not pressure-canned) for 10 minutes. Pulled the jar out, waited for the vacuum seal to take, and then tightened the ring all the way.

My limited knowledge tells me it'll be acidic enough to kill Clostridium, but maybe there are other baddies that'll get in there.

Momo, I could not comment on that without reviewing some recipes and procedures. Going from memory maybe 5 years old last time I re-read my canning book (way overdue, BTW, and FTR). Off the top of my head though, I agree the acidity clicks with my (terrible) memory. My general rule of thumb for guerilla canning (i.e. pushing the limits) is "when in doubt, leave it in the kettle until the kettle comes back to room temp". So if you'd done that I'd have said "yeah, it looks fine to me". But honestly, I think once you've refreshed your memory with a quick bit of reading, you'll have determined that it is perfectly safe.

Here is my suggestion. First, its probably ok given the high vinegar/salt in the solution. (sauerkraut/ramps any one). Secondly (and do this only if you don't care about your general health- don't quote me or take me to court) as zym says wait. When doing pickles, I've had a batch (or part of a batch) that didn't seem to work. Sometime I've just stuck it in the fridge - it will still pickle and the fridge keeps it relatively fresh. Sometime if I don't think I got a good seal I'll pop the top, clean, and re-process. I've done this the day after the original processing. The third option is just leave it, and try it with caution after a month or so. I really screwed up a batch of pickles - I think I mismeasured my brine or something. The pickles were bubbling the day after processing. When I opened them up after a month, it did not take much to figure out they were bad. Didn't make me sick, but I did have to dump a bunch of jars - very sad :(

The one nice thing when pickling (not canning in general) is you can be a little less paranoid. Don't forget, sauerkraut and many pickles are just made in a big open tub of some sort, not sealed/canned.

Well, I did leave it in the kettle for a bit before taking it out, but certainly didn't wait until it cooled down. I'll the stuff out in a month or two and we'll see how dangerous I really am!

I just got my Presto pressure canner recently, I've only used it once to date to can some chicken stock. I'm very happy with quality/price/size; I went to pick mine up in Ogdensburg NY but from what I hear they have recently started shipping to Canada accoring to this www.redflagdeals.com

On to bigger canning jobs now!!

w00t!

Just got my copy of "putting food by", so much reading to do.

After Zymurgist's crash course in canning a couple of months back, I finally took the plunge and bought myself a pressure canner. Now it seems I've got a lot of reading to catch up on before I start playing with my new toy...

Start with the USDA Home Canning guide linked above Yan - happy canning!

What did you get for a canner?

I've booked marked it, I'll get to it once I finished my pile of marking. I found the canner on Kijiji, its the same as your and the price was very good...

I finished reading the USDA guide. I do have one question, how do I double stack can's in the pressure canner?

Also, has anyone ever attempted to can Gazpachio? Would the flavor lost be substantial? Normally the preparation of gazpachio, involves letting it sit for 12 hours in the fridge to allow all the flavors to develop, can I skipped this step given that can produce will probably sit for a couple of weeks before being consumed?

If your canner is stackable it should have come with 2 trivets - one for the bottom, and one for the in-between layer. See this video of mine for details



I'm not familiar with Gazpachio nor how it is made, but I'm guessing you could skip the fridge step since flavours will develop in the canner.

What model number All American did you get?

zymurgist gazpacho is a chilled soup and tomato based so probably not suitable for pressure canning. Here is a little more information about it: www.epicurious.com

Ah, OK, it seems it is supposed to be uncooked, which means when it comes out of the canner it will probably not technically be gazpacho. But that is not to say you cannot can the stuff up anyway. It will probably still taste really great coming out of the canner, but may not taste exactly the same.

Zym, Its model 941.

As for Gazpacho, here's a CIA recipe.
400g tomato concasse
140g diced green pepper
70g green onions, thinly sliced,30g diced Jalapenos
50g peeled, seeded, diced cucumber
50g diced celery
45ml chopped basil
15 ml chopped tarragon
950ml vegetable Stock
15ml EVOO
15 ml balsamic vinegar
5ml kosher salt
1.25ml ground white pepper
2.5ml tabasco
10ml Worcestershire sauce

Combine all ingredients, puree with immersion blender, chill for 8 to 12 hours to allow flavor to develop.

941? Damn! That's even bigger than mine (931). You're the first person to ever give me canner-envy :-) If you find it too big I'd be willing to talk about a swap for either my 931 or the other smaller one that I have whose model number escapes me.

Did it come with trivets? A 941 should have come with 2 of them.

Does it have the pet cock, or the flippy thing? See this photo and the next 2 for closeups :
picasaweb.google.ca

Oh, 941 - I'm betting it has the flippy thing - I think that is what the "1" means instead of a "0". Mine is actually a 930, not a 931. My smaller one is the 921 and has the autoclave instead of the pet cock. That pre-sets it to always be at 20 psi which may not be ideal for more delicate things. I think this means you may not have any trivets, as well.

You can order a pet cock and post from All American. I'd like to get them to convert my 921 medical autoclave to a 920 canner. If you feel like doing an order maybe we can get together to save on shipping. YOu may need to order trivets too. You can use just about anything for them, mind you, as long as they are a good fit. They do not have to be perforated metal they can be wire rack.

You and your canner lingo.
If trivets means racks, than yes it came with two. As for the 'pressure stone'(I am sure that is not the proper term for it) it's exactly like the one you brought over -> picasaweb.google.ca

"pressure stone" == "pet cock"
And yes, the trivets are the racks.

Interesting - now I'm confused as to why some of these end in 1 and some in 0 :-)

Sounds like you are all set to go! w00t!