Canning To Stock Your Root Cellar
by admin
Posted on 13-11-2020 04:00 PM
Canning – Water Bath Canning, Steam Canning and Pressure Canning
If you have a pressure canner, you may use it for water bath canning by leaving the vent open. 
The basic procedure for canning food is actually easier than you would think. The essential steps are the following: prepare the food to go into the jars. Clean and sanitize the canning supplies. Add the food to the jars. Cook them in the canner under pressure or boil them in a water bath (high-acid foods).
With water bath canning, jars are completely covered with 212°f boiling water at all times during processing. Pressure canning only uses 2-3” of water and the canner has a special sealing lid in order to build up steam and the temperature inside will reach a higher than boiling temperature. Low acid foods need to be processed at 240°f in order to kill all microorganisms, including clostridium botulinum, which causes food poisoning. Water bath canners are not capable of reaching higher temperatures, so they are not safe for processing low acid foods.
Put on the waterbath or steam canner to boil, filled about halfway with clean water for a full load of 7 jars. Add a splash of vinegar to help prevent mineral build-up on jars and canner. Select only proper, brand-name canning jars. (quarts with wide mouths work best for this project. ) inspect each jar for chips, cracks, or other weaknesses. (a regular jar, such as a commercial pickle jar, is designed to be used only once under such heated conditions. ).
Can I use a pressure canner for water bath canning?
Fermentation changes low acid foods into high acid foods, giving them a longer shelf life to store “as is”, or allowing them to be canned in a water bath canner instead of a pressure canner. Food ferments through the use of salt, whey or specific starter cultures. This makes it easier to digest and more nutritious. Fermented food is also known as “live culture food”.
You will want to learn the canning process for acid foods such as fruits, jams, jellies, pickled and fermented products.
You will need to pour water into the canner. Follow manufacturers directions, since all canners are different. Place the jars in the pressure canner. A pressure canner is a must for canning meat. A hot water bath canner doesn't reach high enough temperatures to kill bacteria. Place the gasket in the lid of the canner and place the pressure gauge or dial at the pressure listed below.
Essential canning equipment includes a stockpot or boiling-water-bath (bwb) canner with a cover and jar rack, canning jars, flat canning lids, jar screw bands or rings, a jar lifter and tested canning recipes. You can get started with canning by using equipment you probably already own. Instead of a bwb canner use any large, covered stockpot you already own, such as a soup pot, crab/lobster pot, pasta pot, tamale steamer or pressure canner — your pot just needs to be two to three inches taller than your jars. For pint jars, your pot needs to be a minimum of 7½ inches deep; for quart jars, a minimum of 9½ inches deep.
While your berries are cooking down, prepare your jars and equipment: wash your jars, self-sealing lids, and rings, set your lids in scalding water, and fill your waterbath canner with the appropriate amount of water, aiming to cover the jars by about 1 inch. (you may use any size or style of jars which appeals to you, provided they are true canning jars.) begin heating the canner.
The Case for Canning
Heat energy is transferred by conduction, convection, and radiation. In retorts used in canning, conduction and convection are important. Conduction is the method of heating in which the heat moves from one particle to another by contact, in more or less straight lines. In the case of conduction, the food does not move in the can and there is no circulation to stir hot food with cold food. Convection, on the other hand, involves movement in the mass being heated. In natural convection the heated portion of the food becomes lighter in density and rises; this sets up circulation within the jar being canned. This circulation speeds temperature rise of the entire contents of the can. Forced convection occurs when circulation is prompted mechanically.
There is quite a debate as to whether the food comes into contact with bpa in metal lids. Since there is head space to allow the jar to build up a vacuum, many believe that the food never comes into contact with the lid. However, the food is expanding inside the jar as it's heated. With boiling food, and little head space, you can imagine the popping and bubbling and condensation coming into contact with the lid and then rolling back down into the food. Bpa is activated by heat and acidic conditions. Boiling hot, acidic foods are a worst case scenario for canning and bpa contamination.
If you have ever canned, you know that glass canning jars are an important investment. They are not cheap. However, if you plan it right, sometimes you can find a source of recycled canning jars for free or at least at a steep discount. Sometimes people will give them to you other times they will charge a small amount for them. Before going out and looking for canning jars from used sources, make certain that you know what a good deal actually is. I have seen used canning jars for sale for $1 each and if i had not done my homework, i might have thought they were a good deal. Before going out and buying used canning jars, I went to my local discount stores (walmart or dollar general) and priced what the canning jars cost there. I noted the density of the glass in the jars. I noticed that these new jars had canning lids and rings were included so i priced lids and rings and subtracted their cost from the value of the jars. Once i had subtracted what rings and lids cost, I knew how much a dozen jars cost. I divided that amount by 12 to determine the actual cost of a single canning jar. At that point, i knew that based on what i would pay for new jars with lids and rings, the used jars at $1 per jar was not a good buy for me where I live. This may not be the case where you live, so you will probably want to do your own calculations.
Food Preservation Methods: Canning
Discovering methods to save food from times of abundance for eating during lean months has proven vital to moving our civilization forward. Today, the benefits that emerged from our ancestors’ efforts at preserving food continue to positively affect our lives – and we’re gaining new benefits, too! for ourselves, our community, and the planet, the modern day benefits of preserving our own food have an impact that extends far beyond our kitchens.
The National Center for Home Food Preservation is your source for current research-based recommendations for most methods of home food preservation. The center was established with funding from the cooperative state research, education and extension service, U. S. Department of Agriculture (csrees-usda) to address food safety concerns for those who practice and teach home food preservation and processing methods. They are a wealth of information.
There you will find answers to frequently asked canning questions and find guides to proper canning, ways to make sure your jars don't spoil, and extending the life of your canned food. How to can, freeze, dry and preserve any fruit or vegetable at home and canning tips and directions. And don't forget the recipes for canning just about everything.
Pickling and brining are methods of food preservation and produce similar flavors. The main difference is pickling typically uses both salt and vinegar. In brining, the mixture is mainly just salt and water. Another difference is that often times in brining, you are also fermenting the vegetables, which create beneficial microbes (probiotics) and vitamins.
Historically speaking, food preservation in ancient times is extending the abundance of food in one season in the hope of lasting the supply until the next harvest. It meant that the food that was preserved was meant to be eaten the following winter. Technically speaking, food preservation is defined as any one of the numerous methods of preventing food spoilage. Canning is just one of those methods, but one that is very satisfying - especially when you line all your finished jars up on the shelves in your root cellar!
Home canning equipment
Foods kept where air cannot reach it is preserving by excluding air. Canned foods kept air out of the food. Canning is one of the most common ways of preserving food. Many foods can be canned. Sometimes it’s cheaper to buy canned foods than to can them at home. Preserving food at home is expensive if you need to buy the food to be preserved. The materials and equipment for preserving, like wide-mouthed glass jars, rubber, and pressure cooker, are costly. However, when there is good harvest, canning should be done so the food is not wasted. Canned products should be kept in a cool, dry place. The jars of fruits, vegetables, and other preserves should be labeled properly. Shelves should be kept clean and arranged well so cans and jars could be seen easily.
Canning is probably the most popular and well-known method of preserving food at home, but it is by no means the only one. Other popular home preservation methods are: freezing, dehydrating, cool storage, pickling, and drying. And even that list is not exhaustive. Choosing which method of preserving that is right for you mostly depends on what you are preserving and what equipment or supplies you have available.
The basic answer to what is food preservation; extending your food beyond its natural life through freezing, dehydrating, root cellars, canning, freeze-drying or dehydrating, or converting into products which last longer. My mother preserved food from her garden. She didn’t know how to freeze dry food, and freeze-drying food at home wasn’t the option that it is now with modern equipment. She grew it herself and bottled it in mason jars through water bath and pressure canning. The meat we raised ourselves sat within freezers. We consumed the food through the winter and in the spring she planted again. It was what her pioneering great-grandmothers had done. And now that i have the opportunity to garden my own yard, it’s what i do.
Pressure cookers or pressure canners before the 1970s were thick walled and heavy with clamp-on or turn on lids. Design and safety of this home canning aid has vastly improved since that time. Modern pressure canners are lightweight with removable racks, a dial gauge and a safety fuse. To be considered a pressure canner, this equipment must be able to accommodate at least four one-quart jars.
Canning usually is a more economical method of preserving food in the home than freezing. The canning operation varies from household to household — as to what foods are canned, how they are processed, the kinds of containers or equipment used and the amounts canned at a given time.
I hope you will at least consider canning as a way to preserve your food and stock up that root cellar.