Canning anyone???

[21hens-incharge]

@Auntiejessi3, tomatoes are a lot of people's "gateway" canning experience. You don't need a pressure canner, so the up front expense isn't too bad. Corn and beans MUST be pressure canned. A pressure canner can be pretty pricey.

NOTE: a pressure canner and a pressure cooker are not necessarily the same thing. Instant Pots, for example, are pressure cookers, but not safe for pressure canning. Unless they've made a newer model that is; I don't know.

Get a copy of the Ball Book of Canning. It will tell you the nitty gritty of how to do this. Depending on the edition, it'll have lots of recipes for salsa, sauces, jams, etc.

Check out estate/yard sales to see if anyone is selling a canner, pressure canner, jars, and lids. I've never seen canning equipment at my local Goodwill store. I bet that stuff goes fast.

If you're thinking you want to can a lot of stuff, be on the lookout for boxes of canning lids, too. In 2020, they were very hard to find, and got pricey. There were lots of complaints from people not finding lids, and the lids they did find were failing, ie, not sealing.

I got these online:
https://www.fillmorecontainer.com/70mm-generic-lids-silver-bulk.html
I didn't have any problem with them sealing.

Ask any questions you want to! We all had to learn somehow.

Excellent information ^^^.

Canning tomato based items requires a certain level of acidity. Even with "high acid" tomatoes I still add the lemon juice or citric acid per the ball canning directions. It's there to prevent botulism.

Strawberry jam is a very easy and fun jam to make. Some require pectin to be added but some fruits like plums have enough pectin in the fruit already.

When canning it's good to keep in mind how you will use the items so you use the best sized jar for how you want to use it.

Most importantly.... Have fun.

 

[Pasha838]

I canning all what i can every summer, because i like to canning )) And because the village where i live don`t have any food-shop (i am too lazy to go for buy canned food anywhere to Moscow or nearest towns to food stores).

 

[Sally PB]

When canning it's good to keep in mind how you will use the items so you use the best sized jar for how you want to use it.

This, yes! I used up all my wide mouth pint jars for things like applesauce and apple butter. Then I had to buy more WM pints for something else. Pourable stuff can go in the narrow (regular) mouth jars just fine. That saves the WM for stuff you want to pack in by hand, and really fill the jar, like tomatoes.

Well, assuming your hand fits into the wide mouth jar, of course. Mine does. My step dad's didn't, so he peeled the tomatoes, and my mom packed the jars.

 

[jdfog2]

We can and freeze a lot. I think I enjoy it more than my wife. The past few years we've only canned beans, tomatoes, salsa, pickles, and a few jars of apples. We have enough beans to last years but... you never know. So we'll continue raising them and give some away or take them to the Farmer's Market if we have too many.

We have pretty nice strawberry and blackberry patches and have several apple and cherry trees that will start producing cannable quantities this year.

A lot of those berries are in our freezers. We're planning to try our hand at making some jelly or jam either this weekend or next. This will be our 3rd year of berry production and we expect quite a bit so our upcoming jam making will be practice for later on.

J

 

[Happy hen lover]

I just canned all my pie pumpkins up. Been canning lots of beef too. If roasts on sale for less than 4.00 boneless I buy some mix my roasts and can up 12 to 16 pints to have on hand. I also just
Processed some red Chile pulp and put up a dozen half pints for soups. I use " forjars" lids and love them . Just FYI.