Ready to embark on a culinary adventure? Let’s dive into the world of home canning, where you can transform fresh produce into delicious, long-lasting treats. Canning is a method of food preservation where food is processed in sealed containers to extend shelf life. Those containers can be glass jars or metal cans. For the home canner, we’ll be talking about canning in jars.
History of Canning
Imagine a time before grocery stores, when folks had to rely on their ingenuity to store food. In terms of food preservation and civilization, canning is a fairly new concept. Its origins can be traced back to the French in the early 1800s, around the Napoleonic Wars.
The French government offered an award to any individual who could invent a method to preserve large amounts of military rations. Enter Nicolas Appert, a French inventor who pioneered the art of canning. By sealing food in glass jars and boiling them, he extended their shelf life. It would be 50 years later before Louis Pasteur was able to scientifically explain why the method worked and developed pasteurization.
Wartime has always equated to a surge in interest in canning, whether to store large amounts of inexpensive food to fuel the troops, those troops returning home looking for the convenient foods they’d become familiar with, or those interested in securing their food supplies.
Pressure vs. Water Bath Canning: Which should I use?
We’ve briefly talked before about the greatest risk to preserving food at home is the bacteria that thrives in low-acid and low-oxygen environments and causes botulism. If you remember our overview of preserving in oil, salting, and sugaring or the article on pickling and fermentation, it’s the acidity, salt, or sugar that helps prevent bacterial growth.
Another factor is temperature. If you are putting up meats and most vegetables, the only way to ensure their safety is to heat the contents above the boiling point of water. The only way to do this is with a pressure canner.
Pressure Canning
This method is perfect for low-acid foods like vegetables and meats. It involves using a pressure canner to create a high-temperature, high-pressure environment that destroys harmful bacteria.
A pressure canner is similar to a pressure cooker but usually heavier. It is not recommended to use a cooker for canning. In a pressure canner, a small amount of water is used to produce steam, which under pressure, heats the food to the proper temperature. A critical step is to vent the canner for 10 minutes before pressurizing to keep air trapped in the canner from lowering the temperature.
The pressure gauge should be tested before every season. I would venture to say before every use, as our Extension Agent said she has seen brand new store-bought gauges be off. Small bumps and disturbances can disrupt the gauge’s accuracy. Your local County Extension office usually offers this testing service for free. In an arid environment like we have in Pagosa, it’s also recommended to replace your seals every year.
Water Bath Canning
This technique is ideal for high-acid foods such as fruits, jams, and jellies. It involves placing sealed jars in a pot of boiling water to eliminate harmful microorganisms. I use my pressure canner for water bath canning as well. It has a rack to keep jars off the bottom and ample room to cover the jars with water. The difference is I use it like a traditional pot and don’t pressurize it.
For both water bath and pressure canning, adjustments must be made to accommodate for elevation changes where the temperature that water boils at differs. For pressure canning, this means adding more pressure, and for water canning, this means adding more time to the amount of time boiled. Use trusted charts to adjust for your specific elevation.
Tips & Tricks for Successful Canning
- Quality Equipment: Invest in a good-quality pressure canner or water bath canner.
- Reliable Recipes: Stick to up-to-date, tested recipes from reputable sources like the USDA or Ball jars.
- Cleanliness is Key: Follow basic kitchen hygiene like washing your hands. Sterilize jars and lids when water bath canning.
- Seal the Deal: Ensure jars are sealed tightly to maintain freshness. If jars are not sealed properly, they can be reprocessed.
- Label and Date: Keep track of your canned goods to avoid confusion.
- Storage: Store canned goods in a cool, dark place with the rings removed.
Besides the right pot for the type of canning you’re doing, I find the following equipment extremely useful. A wide-mouth funnel will allow you to add the food to the jars easily without contaminating the edges of the jar. A jar lifter is necessary for removing the extremely hot jars from the canner.
Only use new lids on your jars. The metal rings can be reused if they are not dented or rusty. If you can’t bring yourself to throw out the old lids, exclusively use them for dry storage, freezing, or refrigerating, not for canning. In most cases, you can toss those old lids in the recycle.
When presenting at our Customer Appreciation Event this past September, our local County Extension Agent, Terry Schaaf explained why you should remove the metal rings for storage. She said that if you do get bacteria growing in your jar, the lid will pop off. If the ring were still in place, it would hold the lid on and may reseal, so you wouldn’t know that you had a bad batch.
Recipe Ideas to Get You Started
Remember, food safety is paramount. If you’re unsure about any step, consult a reliable canning resource or your local extension office.
For jams, jellies, and preserves see the USDA Guide 7 Preparing and Canning Jams and Jellies. If you are making jams and jellies with added pectin, you can follow recipes from the pectin manufacturer like these recipes from SureJell.
A favorite cookbook from our Extension Agent that I have mentioned before is So Easy to Preserve, by the University of Georgia Extension.
If you ever feel uncomfortable canning or your jars don’t seal properly, you can always fall back on alternative food preservation methods such as storing in the refrigerator or freezer. When I made fig jam this fall, I only had a dozen new jars with lids, but my recipe produced twice as many jars, so I stored the extra, older jars in the freezer rather than let all that figgy goodness go to waste.
Happy Canning!
By following these simple steps and embracing the canning process, you can enjoy the fruits of your labor all year round. Roll up your sleeves, gather your ingredients, and let the canning adventure begin!
